Living Room

2012-01-29T11:48:00.000-08:00

Living Room Study
Digital Observation, 38 x 19 in.

From The Land Scraps of The American Empire:

"Seeking untroubled contemplation, the people turn to the landscape. Not as a final surrender

in the perceived twilight of the human race, but as a place; a home that is better

than the one issued to the American people without consent, a refuge from which

new ideals can be established, a place of peace in a nation of deliberate upheaval."

Knee Deep In Berries

2012-01-23T08:40:00.000-08:00

Knee Deep In Berries, 2012

2012-01-13T18:29:00.001-08:00

2011-12-03T09:33:00.000-08:00

Self Portrait, Digital. 2009

Run/Jog

2011-11-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

Run/Jog, 2011

The Curse of the Visiting Beetle:

sliding from panic and don't panic

and caving in

a sprinting sinkhole
run/jog

Sword in The Stone / Tools of The Last Embryo

2011-10-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

Sword in The Stone / Tools of the Last Embryo, 2011
Graphite + Digital Color
35 cm x 60 cm

Here's the process I went through:

This was the first composition I tried using. I was fond of how I had the anvil splitting below the sword, and was basically trying to 'plunk' in stuff around it to make a picture. The dead guy was fucking it up the most. Eventually I admitted to myself that the stuff that I liked just wasn't working, and I drew it all out again. The symmetry of the split-anvil-sword combo contrasted really poorly with any asymmetrical elements I tried putting in, and the whole scene seemed too far away, like I was witnessing this event in my front yard from my bedroom window. I was also having difficulty adjusting the horizon line from the ultra-trad horizontal plane without making it look 'wacky'.

I decided to draw the split-anvil-sword concept over and over until I figured out how to remove the symmetry. By drawing it out of balance, it became much easier to then stagger the weight of the composition. The sword is heightened on the left, then the anvil on the right, then the arches of the wall on the left along with the wall itself on the right. I liked how the dead guy before kind of introduced a passage into the anvil with his feet, but the notion of just seeing a dead guy's feet was too 'Clue' for me, and so I used roots instead for the same effect. I still wanted a personage in there, so I carved statues into the wall. I had seen a documentary by PBS on fractals some time before, and while fractals are ultimately too psychedelic for anyone to enjoy properly, the observations the documentary had on trees really helped me on getting the limbs of a tree to split correctly. My intention was to populate the setting with yew trees, but they're short and squat, so I went with the good old generic fantasy tree.

Here is the finished linework, drawn on a piece of laser printer paper I found, with an office supply pencil named 'IBM Electrographic'. It feels like a 3B. The laser paper was dumpy.

I then scanned in my drawing and flatted it, a fact that is boring but true. Random but easily distinguishable colors.

Then I tried finding the values I wanted, but I was never totally satisfied with the outcome. What should be made dark? What should be made light? I envisioned an overcast autumn day, before noon, with dry weather. Directional shadows are almost totally lost in overcast weather, but I also wanted to keep up with the 'arcade-style' direction I had taken so far with the image, so I started making shit up. Which is a terrible idea, if your aim is verism.

And here is the colors. I colored exclusively in yellow-violet complimentary colors, in true arcade fashion. At this point some things came to light. First was that my linework was extremely thin and diagrammatical. It would have been better, I think, to have drawn in most of the values in pencil, so that I would have better 'containers' for my fields of color, rather than trying to trick the fuck out of my photoshop brushes and textures making it look natural. Maybe i'll change my tune once I figure out how to paint grass. Second was that my values, as pleasant as they seemed to be, were messing with what I wanted in terms of focus. Framing the sword against the overcast sky really sucked the life out of it. Overcast weather is basically just a gray container brimming with light. Half the time it's too bright to look at directly. How can a little old blade compete with that? I considered included some flashy shadow on the sword, but I'm someone who usually works in subtleties and my brain couldn't handle the flashiness of it. I guess I couldn't take arcade style to the very end.

My 'finishing touches' were some light textures applied overall and a few gradients. I also added a layer of violet at a 1% opacity to the whole image to unify the colors.

OH YO

2011-10-04T19:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Everybody on The Planet,

i'm in a group show at the brand-flabbin'-new

SO HI TEK Gallery

it is a yo yo show

with plenty of yo yos

and drink and song, et al

THURSDAY OCTOBER 6

6 PM to 9 PM

NW 6th Street (between Everett and Flanders)

Sincerely,

Cameron of Wyoming, Son of James, Son of George

The style of the N R E

2011-09-20T22:24:00.000-07:00

N R E, Ink, Digital Color 2011

N R E style is anti-pixel psychedoolick style

Quoting Hogarth's Chief Mess Cook: "I'm angry and open-minded, which is why I feed the N R E when they stop by. Ultimately, I'm hopeful."

Piping Can

2011-09-16T00:20:00.001-07:00

Banana Split!

2011-08-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

VOTE HERE

To The Seven Continents,

Who is this guy, and why does he like my shirt so much?
He told me it was because it made his dumpy ass jeans look cooler.

Because, you know, something on your body has to carry the day,
and your Nordstrom rack jeans aren't going to be there forever.

My shirt, however, will hug you and never let you go-
don't forget that, my eternal friends, and vote now.

Facemelter Awareness

-Respectfully Yours,

King Prince Cameron, CEO
Amalgamated Sugar Co.

2011-08-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

yesterday K slipped on a jellybean
and I dropped a raspberry

today i put my face on a dog
and got a curse on my face

Towne Ande Countrye

2011-08-11T16:01:00.000-07:00

it is here
the people's culture
for all hands far and wide

TOWN & COUNTRY

a treatise on a power of a commonwealth
ecclesiastical and civil

nah, just kidding

it is really rad though!
MAKE IT YOURS

3 winds

2011-08-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

3 winds
ink, watercolor, digital

ref. China

slip newt

2011-07-29T17:50:00.000-07:00

ba-zow!

these letters are fresh out of the cameron department store bakery

i just read a quote from an old issue of U&lc whilst eating my pancakes:

"what will save people from television? good type, and lots of it!"

futura is the new papyrus

dooling truths

2011-07-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

there ain't never gonna be no separation of church and state

even religious folk have a right to vote

also

sometimes you want to go everywhere

but you keep going back to cambodia

if you don't change your direction

you'll end up where you're heading

Brass Knuckle & Jicama Study

2011-07-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

2011-07-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

an excerpt from Strategies of the High Plains

once there was a pencil sharpener

mounted to the left inside of a kitchen doorway

whose bedroom hallway had been modified into a closet

and unshelved contents of which spilled out

generously.

the pencil sharpener was installed under the can crusher

and my knuckles would rap

against the muscle blue foam handle

and sometimes the metal lip of which

the foam wrapped.

the pencil sharpener was made from several different

sensibly unattractive browns except for the aluminum handle

which was spray painted tannish.

it clung resolutely behind boxes of unrecycled glass bottles

and despite that all six of its six pencil sharpening sizes

were somehow too large for pencils

it was still used

once in a while

...

list of things that are also jobs that are the things

pencil sharpener

washer

dryer

lawn mower

plein aiiirrrr

2011-07-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

I need more plein air painting in my life

there's nothing i want more

too bad portland is a gray soup

and can be real bland

who wants to paint stupid boxy parking garages

let's all live in forest park

2011-06-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

not too-o senti-mental

2011-05-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

me'n Kaney West having a good joke

2011 is the summer of buddies

hereafter known as Muddy Buddy Crew

of which Kaney is an honorary member

who has yet to pay his dues

2011-05-26T21:54:00.001-07:00

2011-05-18T15:02:00.000-07:00

Four and Four Disciples, 10 x 14, Ink

2011-05-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

-a poem for the barechested-

ooh-ohh

whoa whoa

the blacker the berry

ohh whoa whoa whoa

i wanna be free-ee-ee

2011-05-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

finished the cover design for my science fiction story

COMING OUT THIS SUMMER

to nowhere everywhere

big plans, secret plans

YELLOWY MAN

2011-04-14T22:38:00.001-07:00

THE YELLOWY MAN

the storm inside my soul

el tough guy putting his face to the news,

w/ vein tank doing the threaten

newports and nike

matches and mongols

TIME AND FORTUNE

two v.big deals in everybody's opinion

also cleaning your teeth

and two eyeball men who are ON

top of celebrating prosperity in a spoon

oh it's all a game anna rolla the dice

------------

just a life in the day of the yellowy man

also check kinoko's out

BROTHERS OUPHE

2011-04-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

from the haunted comic vault show
up this month

at EL GUAPO COMICS

haaaaooooh
haaaaaaaoooooh
ohhh ohhh ohhhh

this one's for ballard

2011-04-08T14:55:00.001-07:00

spef. concentration city

alldigitall

THURSDAY THURSDAY THURSDAY

2011-04-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

O YES i'll be in three shows this month:

TO TO TWO strips of bacon in the Pony Club Show
A WHOLE CASE of sketchbooks in the PNCA Library
and then a real sticky bun in the PNCA ILLUSTRATION JURIED SHOW

come one come all

ho yes

2011-03-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

18 by 24
rapidograph and a computer i found

with a hint of mint

2011-03-16T20:21:00.001-07:00

in progress

2010-10-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

just so's you know

a face a place a timing of space

2010-08-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

almost everything

rapidograph

and rapidograph

there it is

2010-07-20T19:37:00.000-07:00

eiffel tauer

2010-07-02T08:08:00.000-07:00

a bit silly

2010-06-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

copic marker, ink pencil. observational drawing/a little pep in it, ~15 min.

a new thing

2010-06-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

inks and watercolor and rapidograph i suppose

2010-06-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

crayola window mega marker

2010-06-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

observational drawing, rapidograph size 1

Maundering (work in progress)

2010-06-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

18 x 24. watercolor paper, m.graham watercolors, two different highly specialized looking watercolor brushes, brown noodler's ink

painting study

2010-05-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

acrylic paint, illustration board

2010-05-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

higgins blue w/unknown brush, rapidograph w/rapidograph ink, size 4

a church

2010-05-20T21:38:00.000-07:00

observational drawing, lamy safari fountain pen w/supplied ink, 10-15 min

theoretical show

2010-05-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

The viewer gets to hear each piece as performed in its original environment, in the environment of its successors, and in the environment of the work that preceded it and was inspired by. They literally explore the history of ambient music at their own pace, context, and desired order. 5 directional speakers are placed on two adjacent walls, forming a grid of 25 contexts – 5 for each sound piece. Strictly speaking, the show is composed of 10 selections: 5 song selections representing the evolution of ambient music to the present, and recordings of the environment that each song was first performed in. The directional speaker allows the listener to travel through the gallery as a viewer would, moving from piece to piece without having to wear headphones or be contained in a booth to maintain a pure sound quality. The speakers playing the environment are the first the listener encounters upon entering the room; this is to establish a where before the listener experiences the what. Since the pieces are the main focus, it’s important that the listener recognizes the place in history before the pieces that inhabit them.

John Cage - 4’33
What can get more ambient than silence? Cage poses the radically new idea of what sounds are and what music is doing in response/in concert with those sounds.

Raymond Scott - Tin Soldier – Soothing Sounds For Baby
Father of the ambient musician’s tools. Heavily researched the concept of “electronically updating the sounds around us” via consumer products that produced electronic chime when used. He invented the synthesizer, and directly influenced the invention of the moog.

Brian Eno – Music For Airports 1/1 – Ambient 1
Inventor of the genre ambient music, defining it as “low-volume music designed to modify one’s perception of a surrounding environment.” Music for Airports was the first album to carry the title, and was designed as a sound installation in the Marine Air Terminal of New York’s LaGuardia Airport to defuse the tense, anxious atmosphere.

Richard D. James – Windowlicker – Windowlicker EP
Redefined ambient music, using a different approach to the creation of the music itself and not just the composition. He introduces texture: computer glitch noises, digital sound artifacts, effected tones of motors, machines, and other found sounds all densely layered compositions that move away from the somewhat cold smooth sound of those before him.
Windowlicker is the first of his songs to breach popular culture and make it into the mainstream.

Animal Collective – Doggy - Campfire Songs
Selected for the influence of ambience – environment – into a different genre. Shows how far the influence of these artists can spread. Campfire Songs is a concept album created with the idea of songs that sound “really warm and inviting-sounding”. Ambient sound of the screen porch in Maryland was recorded during the performance and mixed in later to make it “sound like how a campfire feels.”

this needs to be a pattern for some scrubs

2010-05-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

it's an illustrator study

2010-05-04T00:10:00.001-07:00

ego trippinh

2010-05-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

who draws like a boy

2010-04-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

rapidograph w/rapidograph ink, size 2, prismacolor colored pencils. 2H pencil

thick and thin

2010-03-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

finally inked

2010-03-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

FRISK IT

2010-03-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

2010-03-18T08:02:00.001-07:00

2010-03-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

2010-03-13T23:18:00.001-08:00

2010-03-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

a fate of so many

2010-03-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

2010-02-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

february fifteen two thousand ten

2010-02-16T22:27:00.000-08:00

think white thoughts

2010-02-15T07:50:00.000-08:00

they all thought they could co-opt the forbidden word
just like man thinking he could use the one ring for good
but in the darkness it all binds us
a instead of er is only a cosmetic distinction
you try and suck the venom out but then it's in your mouth

ballion gurt sgurp limmen

2010-02-13T21:37:00.000-08:00

honk
monster study
Feb. 1 2010

2010-01-06T10:13:00.000-08:00

so yeah a practice thing like how far can you get away from something and still hit the middle like archery and how the further you are the more impressive the shot. mental sniper in the kudzu of idea

wha qua

2009-09-17T01:54:00.000-07:00

so yeah who knows it's like i am riding the fence between this and that and sure you're thinking oh look at this fella he's just mincing words and trying to keep himself and everyone else from the truth that basically everyone else knows already, except that's not quite it and asides it's nice to kind of throw a vague thing out there and see what you get back it's like psychic echolocation but actually kind of more self-absorbed than i feel comfortable with. like tacking on a disclaimer to everything you do just so that when shit hits the fan later you can kind of sit on your haunches and pull the 'hey i warned you i was bad news' flag out from under your shirt, a cheap move sure but given the circumstances and situation it's kind of difficult to run the whole righteousness thing where you're supposedly wiser or more urbane or witty or whatever kind of wealth of knowledge is the most fashionable at the moment. oh i am so over this

2009-08-25T14:19:00.000-07:00

2009-08-25T14:15:00.000-07:00

portland zine symplosionum/ INK CARTRIDGE FUNERAL

2009-07-25T20:28:00.000-07:00

or whatever.

sold all the stuff i had so i am making new stuff for tomorrow, you know, press the flesh and spread the word and get my hot shit all over the place
you know painting the town brown
ALSO
ink cartridge funeral is right there with me and i'm taking it upon myself as some guy with the broken website to kind of take in all the readers that were totally pumped on the first issue and or their x-ray specs. uh in short [ink cartridge funeral -> here].

for updates or whatever.

but yeah if you'll know if you stopped by the table because we are SNAKE OIL SALESMEN. you will own our zines before you even open them and that's not because we are looking for a quick buck (although we kind of are or at least i am) but it is because we love you. we love you, and we know you are nervous about trying to quantify our creative endeavors into a monetary amount. we make this process as painless as possible. to the man we actually hussled: we love you, too.

yes sir here i am reporting for duty and this was a totally safe psa

HUA HOU HUA HOU HOOEUUU

2009-07-14T08:15:00.000-07:00

the legend that precedes the person- knowing before knowing, really- "jamais vu". How would one be met, and how would said subject subject themselves to the inevitable- them- in a conversation?
to wit:

"Hello, I am a big follower of yours."

ranging from the simple (trite?) "thank you" to the total abstract- the fact that no reply could be ideal means any reply will suffice- "does that mean you'll come to my hotel room?", "fuck off", "i hope your mother approves", words, any and all. the full spectrum, even the colors invisible to the human eye. silence can even work, carried by a long, cool gaze.
Again:

"Hello, I am a big follower of yours."

"Thank you." (let's keep it simple)

So then what? Me- by which i mean you- know this person. you have witnessed what they can do, pored over interviews of them "baring it all", teeth included, and yet- jamais vu- you are talking to a stranger. which should be discouraging, or humbling, rather (preferably) but actually isn't, because you like this person. you want to know more about this person. you have not yet had the (dubious) honor of watching their mannerisms, their affectations (face it- both of you know you aren't in this just to ask the time) and so you plow forward, attempting to till that well-trod path of adoration and admiration with the seeds of wit (watch your parlance, they may be flattered but they ain't no fool) hoping that an ineffable (as in f--- this, f--- that immune) connection flowers between the two of you.
it might happen. "we are not so unlike each other, you and i" is what you think, feel. express.
but the barrier remains, they in one camp, you in another, not even existing before, but before was before you said hello.
more specifically, hello, this is me, and i like you, i follow your work, i follow you. can this be construed as a glancing blow from the hand that must be held? you follower, you.

BUT I LOVE WHAT THEY DO
you declare, hands up in that look-i-know-it-might-be-lame-but-i'm-being-honest-and-isn't-that-a-lot-like-being-passionate-and-true,-in-this-context? sort of way.

be that as it may, fawning is fawning. curry favor with curry flavor, as in they are human, so are you, and that fact is actually the Great Leveller that makes us all equal. let's present ourselves, gift ourselves, in our best bow and ribbon display. tada! data. people like to say 'no, no mirrors please, no smoke, it makes me cough, just give me you, plain old you, as you are. this is what i want to see.' which is well-intentioned but really. it's just what you think you want to see. you want to see smoke and mirrors- and what's the difference? because how we project ourselves is an extension of- or not even that, it actually is- who we are.

so in short when they see you and you see them you use your mirror and you reflect their thoughts- you are not so unlike each other- and peer into them, into their routine (it's been there all along, it's just that it's all you've ever seen- you've been duped) and know them as your brother or sister, and all that implies (infers?).

the Golden Rule has many ancillary applications- it's not all about kindness, you fucks- it's all about where you place yourself and where you place others, which need not be reflected in each other- the mirror is, after all, a metaphor- so when you practice it (or better yet, utilize it) don't make the rookie mistake of thinking that by denying this vagrant his greedy gulps of tobacco (he calls it charity) that you're entitling him reprisal. The hands that holds (remember?) the Golden Rule can deliver a glancing blow. so when that asshole with the hot wife that looks slightly boozy and slightly crazier cracks you a fat one in the face for gawping a moment too long, don't feel slighted. that's kismet. through this slight, we see the sleight of hand. from the hand that is held, to the hand that holds, to the hand that holds the sway in all things you do- yes, you- jamais vu. we see ourselves performing one action- kissing our loved ones before they leave for work- and think the world unfair when we drive into a tree four years later, and never making the connection all the while. this specific sleight of hand takes years for the reveal, and the flourish is that there is no flourish at all- so elegant and precise, that particular strain of music- it is immediately hidden beneath the blaring horns and tinny wails of our ware-hawking humanity. if you find the measure (use the Golden Rule) you will hear the clarion call.

so when you approach the person of your admiration, or are approached by an admirer, do not mire in that difficult and desolate terrain of compliments and erudite attitude- this is stating 'i follow your work', this is stating 'my hand needs to be held', this is stating 'i am hawking my wares', this is actually stating nothing. If you speak, you will be spoken to. attune yourself- we all have an affinity to some tune- and speak in that timbre.

so okay

2009-06-22T13:52:00.001-07:00

SO YEAH i decided yesterday to sit my ass down and find a photo of the occasion. incident. event? whatever. i'm the fella in the grey sweatshirt (hoodie? hoody?). apparently i am telling some entertaining story to my friend and the guy i was tabled with. sorry guy. you are not my friend. yet! he made a comic about vegans and it sold well. i made a comic about nothing and it sold terribly. well, i don't know. what are good sales for this sort of thing? so ANYHOWZERS i took this photo off of some other dudes' website (see if you can find them in the photo!) and this pretty much is all the evidence i have for even being there.

uh my website is still broken raw deal i am so over the internet

OCF

2009-06-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

so now it's twelve forty and my real cool website done broke on me so i guess this is what i'll have to use until i fix it. which will be months from now, i'm sure.
uh yeah so i am going to the OCF and i am going to try to trick some people into buying my stuff maybe i will even make enough money for a sixer now wouldn't that be something.

rob robotic tics

2009-06-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

to be frank what is there to be frank about. hold that gait. did i say single-signifier engines are simpler and therefore less complex? you have to live with seemingly contradictory conclusions in life. understanding doubly so, and avoiding all tangles of wire along the way. sure maybe i cloud my sincereisms in metaphor but it seems to be the only vehicle fit for transport. at least it's something everyone recognizes, anyway. is this the only possible way to distribute information? through disassembly towards dissembly, from point to point. hotdogs -> mustard-> color -> pigment -> color spectrum of visible light. the need to map out information to digest it. you're never in a new place? that's possible. everything links. the futility of expressing a point of view. all tools of expression are tainted with personal experience and doing so, erased permanently the potential to decontextualize a noun. so the only way to attain pure expression is through wholly new expression. which is impossible, because everything is made in relief from everything else. is a golf club really a golf club, or is it a golf club simply because everything else on the planet isn't a golf club. which is well-tread territory.

2009-05-21T14:18:00.001-07:00

you know, blogging. the blogging thing. it's a journal thing, a me talking to the planet kind of thing. like stonehenge? it's possible.
humans and humanity. the ending of things, cycles. epochs. which i haven't ever felt before but i can now sit at the midpoint of time and watch the past cascade into its conclusion and see the future ebb into its vanishing point, and frankly, it makes me melancholy. melancholic? perhaps.
well yeah of course there's a point to all this and that anything evers gets done at all, really. so. do i write enough? is the question that i asked myself. and the response: well probably not so i guess i better do something about it. do i write about the routine? my phone is broken, there is something wrong with it, before it was the memory card and now that this is happening i am beginning to think it might be corrupt and how much is a new card anyhow? i should get a new phone. a camera phone. i should get a higher paying job. ETC. ETC. or should i write the fantastic and otherwordly? Of dragons and dragon government and dragon taxes and dragon gerrymandering? Many choices and would think that if my aim here was to record memory that i should probably better go with writing my day down, but that's too easy, right? everyone gets hassled by bums, everyone buys new pants, eats dinner, take naps, drink. fuck. So the abstract, serving as a map of the mind, would be the vehicle you should drive into the core of your soul. Unfortunately for the abstract, it has no context. it's the most honest protrayal, and the most dense- subject to all matter of interpretation, giving nothing, taking nothing.
so yeah writing is pretty simple if you're just shooting the shit you know talking about nothing in particular but if you want to get to the real good stuff you got to take your time. maybe. it's different for everyone i guess but the important thing is flow and visualization what wait what okay. so i'm not the advice giving guy. i've got no degree of Success to back those claims up, so yours truly is backing up and clamming up. well no that i'm kind of warmed up i have to email my grammy, wotta lady

A TREATISE ON CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES

2009-04-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

-IN WHICH ALCOHOL IS INCLUDED-

For many people, the idea of drinking more than four times a month is considered bad behavior. Drinking more than four times a week is cause for great concern, and drinking every night might as well be pinning a little white sign on your lapel stating 'Social Leper'. While these rules aren't arbitrary, and are probably based somewhere on some crackpot medical lecture, people have got to be more understanding when it comes to liquor, and hopefully some perspective can be finally gained on your garden variety lot of domestic drugs/drug use.

For example:
Socks.
One of the many mundane objects that litter our bedroom floors, socks a just a note in the elevator music melody that ekes out the soundtrack to our lives. In short, socks are fucking boring. Save for the 5 minute fanfare they get when someone asks me what I would do if I Became Wealthy (wear new socks every day), I give socks absolutely no thought whatsoever. However! As droll as they may be, I have to deal with them every single day. This is where Controlled Substances comes into play, riding valiantly out from all the Trees on his White Stallion, his Black Dart arrows resting comfortably in his quiver. Sweet vehicles to new perspectives. Perhaps because of our Puritan ancestry, it has become some kind of noble penance to stretch our lives twice their perceived length so that every day becomes a vast swathe of Time in which we are forced to Deal With The Mundane Mundanely. This is insane, and I call for a stop to it right now. Drinking at 9 in the morning has got naught to do with one's Moral Fibre or Steadfastness. I think that anyone, anyone at all, has got a perfect right to Wake and then Bake. Because honestly? Brushing your teeth, putting on deodorant, picking out socks, making the bed, all these activities more or less make up the bulk of our day; let us find comfort and solace from these habits. At some point during our gory transcendence from bloodletting and human sacrifice and making nuns drink boiling pitch (see: RED TERROR) into our current Domestic Glory, we have lost all distinction between the people who like to have a drink or eight every night and, well, the fucking miserable other half who always start conversations in bars but ironically are the worst ones to talk to- everyone gets lumped into the Bad Citizens pile. To adopt a phrase, it is "weak shit".

HOLY GUACOMOLE

2008-09-23T01:22:00.000-07:00

I found these chat transcripts from when I was but the mere age of 18 and me oh me, me oh my, I was a very dramatic teenager. I'm not trying to hate on my past self but goodness I don't even think I liked ostriches or camels back then, and basically these days that is a pretty big deal for me. Man these days I even think walnuts are funny. WHAT IF I GO BACK TO MY TEENAGE WAYS. All whipping out band names all the time and telling everyone that life is the worst thing ever, just grump all day in the corner wearing black and saying really unbearable things just for the shock value! My heart palpitates at the sheer thought of it. However. From what I can tell, there are two things about getting older. 1) You will always be embarrassed about who you were, and 2) You get less embarrassing as you get older. It is a gentle and forgiving slope when you are in your thirties (man, last year I farted in a movie theater!). the transition from teenager to 20-something is far more violent (JESUS CHRIST I just remembered that night where drank 99 Bananas until I puked all over my crush's bed and then locked myself in her bathroom and cried myself to sleep!). Some might argue that the drama of a teenage life is desirable (the heaving bosoms! the urgent fumblings!), but nothing is worth going back to the melodrama, even if your nostalgia for that sort of thing has blunted the insanity of it all. To wit:

(midnight, on the weekend)
MOM: where have you been?
ME (clearly trashed): ...whatever, you don't care.
MOM: You need to show some respect!
ME: Respect is a weapon used by capitalists to suppress human thought! I'm an anarchist, mom!
MOM: I don't care if you're president! You're grounded!
ME: Anarchists don't get grounded! You are such a typical capitalist. Fascist.
MOM: DON'T TAKE THAT ATTITUDE WITH ME!
ME: Why are you yelling? I'm not yelling. Let's be civil about this, fascist.

Seriously, halfway through reading my account of a tortured teenage life I cringed so hard that I flew back from my laptop and hit the wall.

cheap wine and the sands of time

2008-08-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

cheap wine always reminds me of churches. everyone i know has always got a bad word about churches, and i agree, for the most part. nobody talks about the spiritual kind of envelopment that happens. i remember being an acolyte, holding the decanters of wine and holy water, and the hush over the procession, stained glass windows scattering winks and blinks of light everywhere, the wooden altar, the creaking chairs. it gave me the kind of awe that i think that i am too jaded to know now, except for rare moments in music. it was transcendent. when you really believe, it's incredible. not that i wish to go back to that, or even to adopt an agnostic standpoint to be able to indulge myself in that holy procession again- it wouldn't work. what's done is done. god does not exist. but when i was a kid, for a little while, i really thought the whole thing was real. you could pray, and your husband could come back to life, the sun could stand still, angels with swords of fire fought the demons of the underworld, and it was ageless. today i still stop and think about those rituals, and the reverence, and its de facto respect. it wasn't something you could or could not take seriously, because it was beyond that. it was a process handed down from generation to generation, and there isn't any of that anymore.
i guess when i think of church as a child it embodies the old traditions that are so rare now- heirlooms, legacies.

update

2008-07-26T04:04:00.000-07:00

so remember how i gave change to that one homeless guy who had a lazy eye, well i done spotted him with my friends the other day, all asking for change, and then one of us gave some leftover pizza to him, all benevolent like, and he seemed so happy about that but then not even two minutes later we spotted him again and he rolls right into his homeless patter about how homeless he was and dude didn't even recognize us, kind of disheartening, i had faith in that homeless man what with his lazy eye and all i thought he just got into a bad situation but the dude can't even remember folks two minutes since. i wonder if he ate the pizza we gave him or if he threw it away.

2008-07-26T03:48:00.000-07:00

so i have been thinking about gay people and more or less it's a mystery? is there some kind of genetic thing going on where gay men must act the stereotype of the limp wristing flamboyant lisping sassy man, or is it just a man getting back in touch with his long-abandoned feminine side and overcompensating because all the straight men are refuse to dress fashionably. and what does being gay have to do with femininity anyhow, all sorts of ancient greek (grecian?) dudes getting it on with each other, but still being very manly, what gives. maybe gay dudes somehow got suckered into that kind of attitude, that since they're not straight they can't act like a straight man regardless of who they are and how they feel about, i mean i like audrey hepburn, but when a gay guy likes audrey hepburn i kind of want to groan and then i think wait what is this me being homophobic, what's going on here. i haven't read any essays about this sort of thing but for sure they are out there, and maybe someday i will read one and understand it all but until then i think straight dudes should not hang testicles off of their trucks and gay dudes should not have a limp wrist because seriously those things have nothing to do with anything so give it up already i do not need abstract notifiers of what your sexual preference is. i do not go around talking about pussy all day and that is because i try to be a gentleman but all bets are off when i've been drinking but hey you've got to come up short somewhere i guess

shadows in the afternoon

2008-06-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

living here in portland, hearing the brakes of the bus on schedule, sitting in the sunlight, watching a pair of rusted tin cans sway in the breeze on a powerline, tied up in string, trying to make an understanding of what it is that i am doing here. small events that occasionally pull me into what i think is an insight about different places, portland being so foreign- not in the sense of a culture shock, but in the sense that everything is so familiar, the same people and stores you find in wyoming, but all the tiny things that don't quite match up, somehow the feeling is different. so disorienting, trying to explain it but it's inexplicable, what's happening. certain situations just push my head into the wrong place, makes me feel sick sometimes, drinking a cup of coffee and still my hands are shaking after six hours, trying to acclimate myself. i think that maybe these small situations, circumstances, these things create a narrative that i am experiencing but will never digest, thinking that there's answers in the sky and water that i might be able to discern but can't because it's too close to me, physically- but then i think of those people who believe bananas prove god, and maybe there's nothing for me to interpret here, just the narrative already running in my head and possibly manifesting itself in foreign incidents. it's not a negative feeling, just a feeling that even though i live here that maybe i will never be here, just a different personality residing inside me, that i can never merge the two, wyoming, colorado, oregon, all different states in both senses. one or one or the other, choosing.

sometimes i don't like the internet

2008-06-14T00:52:00.000-07:00

so today i woke up to a picture message on my phone from dan, showing me a pic of this bike that had been hanging on his neighbor's garage wall for who knows how long out in weather. which is really cool you know for him, it being free and everything but it really put the brakes on my day, like, he just got a awesome red bike first thing in the morning and now i'm gonna have to top that, but i don't even got butter for toast, what with being poor and making bad shopping decisions and all. I'll have a list and everything, and then i'll be walking home with bags of groceries and look down and there's a mini keg of beer in there right where the butter and the plunger were supposed to be, and i'm not gonna go make two trips on the store in one day, so i nurse the keg and think what kind of a terrible breakfast i'll be having, coffee and toast with no butter.
all that from a red bike, man, so i just say to myself "well man if you can't top a red bike then don't bother with nothing and try again tomorrow" then it's all swamp moods from there.

also i suckered into one of those ads on the internet that you been seeing since the old webcrawler days, filling out surveys and getting paid big dime for it, always seems too good to be true, but you're always kind of mulling it over when you have a shitty job, sittin' there putting mcpatties on the broiler thinking that you could be doing hell of better holed up in your room with your new afi cd and clicking on answers to questions. so i rack up something like a small fortune in points, which are redeemed into cash money, over a hundred bucks, and i'm so pleased i say out loud 'damn dude you found the perfect calling your pot of coffee ain't even ready yet' but when i try and cash out it tells me that i have a minimum number of offers that i have to fill out, so i'm grumbling a little about that, but justifying it, saying well yeah they can't have any old homebody nickel-and-diming them they need people who're gonna take this seriously but then after i do all that i try to cash out again and they tell me that i also have to make a certain money amount to get any at all and that blows my top, so i want to have a word with their customer service, but they ain't got no number on the site so i google map their address and it shows me a toys r us in arizona and no way in hell this toy company is running something like this on the side and it dawns on me that they probably just scammed me so hard and i get all panicky, looking at my credit card and my email and stuff, but nothing's happening so i calm down a little. still though it's like my info or something is sitting in some data farm and it's only a matter of time before this greasy hacker is gonna remember that he sold me up the river a couple of months ago and is gonna go cash in all sorts of stuff like lotto tickets and sports cars and a hooker. falling all over myself on 20/20 on another rambling identity theft special with tom brokaw type suits making me look like a fool when i already damn well know that.

i'm abuse brews and den boos

2008-06-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

i haven't had any coffee for the past week and now i'm barreling through my third cup and i feel like i'm going through the videodrome (is it a noun? do you experience the videodrome? or just watch it? fuck it it's a metaphor) and and so when i am drawing i kind of have that cool chwast kind of line style. they're playing in rainbows here in the coffee time and while that's cool, it's basically pretty depressing but also sounds really good? i keep rubbing my face and sighing and i don't know what i am going to be doing with the rest of my day, maybe get more coffee, write a resume, pay on my student loan, do something productive? i feel like i just took a hit of crack. FUCK man why are they playing this album it's like an infinite winter inside my head and all i can think of staring at the snowfall and not having anything to do and it's getting dark and cold and it's for forever. the first time i listened to this album i was waiting to go to work at the library and it was 7 in the morning and downtown was deserted and it was snowing like crazy, all the stores were closed, it was sunday, and i just stood by the library staff doors for two hours, staring at the snow falling in the cold gray in a gray sky, just getting colder and colder and smoking cigarettes and being all wired on coffee, which starts to feel a lot like stress if you drink too much freezing. then i realized that i didn't have to work that day after two hours thinking what the fuck why isn't anybody here.
sometimes i don't want to draw anymore because i see all these other people drawing so much better than me and it's like well goddamn i guess i'll leave it all up to the professionals then, but i keep drawing anyhow, like on accident, so i guess i'll just keep doing it hopefully i'll get better, always worrying about that kind of stuff, how can people just shrug off shit all day and keep smiling you know? i'm getting older and straight up coming apart the seams it feels like. oh ah well i know i got it better than most folks right? and i got friends too, they just ain't here with me right now, thousands of miles away, but still there. they'll pick up the phone if i call and that's pretty cool, to have a crew like that, honest people. still though where's my boo you know? sleepin' on some junky futon trying to keep it all together and i used to drink every night but i didn't pay no mind, i had my gal and folks around all the time, but now i drink every night alone and that's pretty miserable sitting there at the computer with your discount wine staring at all those fancy artists on the internet when you know you should be looking for a job, just freaking out i guess, worrying about making a name of yourself and just trying to live up the expectations that you had of yourself when you were ten, wondering where all that the zeal for life went. i don't even speak no second language. what gives.
see man look at this i was starting out fine on this speech but they're jammin' radiohead and it don't do no good for folks, listening to this kind of stuff when you're already tryin' to keep from being hard on yourself, i thought i was doing good today too, downloading microsoft word, getting letters ready for businesses, replying to stuff, checking up on stuff, gettin' up at 2 and showering. baby steps, man, baby steps. at least i moved out somewhere right? being all basically independent, callin' my ma on sundays, washing myself and doing laundry.

nigga's like what the fuck is this?

2008-06-01T02:12:00.000-07:00

look at this, what kind of luck is this?

It rains here -again- a fine deceptive rain that could be mist if you get lazy about it. moss grows over everything. I feel like i'm walking on the grounds of some esteemed college. Oxford? maybe.

i am listening to the scarlett johansson and record and it reminds me of the kids in school who were real shy and hid under the slide or over by the trees during recess, and how i always thought that they were probably really cool once you got to know them but then you meet them twenty years later at a bar and it turns out that they were just real shy as a kid and actually pretty boring.
maybe i am giving her a hard time ever since i fell in love with her in the beginning of lost in translation but maybe not? she should make things easy for me and be great all the time instead of making me ponder the specifics of it all.

also there are a lot of bums in portland so maybe restrict giving money out to ones with specific characteristics: eye patches, missing legs and so on. my criteria right now is the businessman who looks like he just had his car stolen.
Number of homeless guys i have seen that look like businessmen who looks like they just got their car stolen: 1.
Amount of money given: 25 cents.
also he had a lazy eye. you may think that may exclude him from the businessman category but plenty of businessmen have toupees and when it comes down to it, what really is the difference between fake hair and a screwy eye?

plus do bees have little bee hearts or is it just goop inside their body?

2008-03-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

but it really doesn't matter at all
no it really doesn't matter at all
because life's a gas