Friday, June 29, 2007

More than Mel (Gibson)

What is low? Low is down but yet still lower still. Low is the absence of love. It’s blue. It’s that moment when the object is smashed and porcelain shattered. Bah! What can it matter? There is always lower still. Try doing this with a kid and a brain tumor and bellyache. Try death and then some – brothers gone, babies gone, and thousands scarred for life, etcetera. Low is no hope, not even in the horrid pit of death. And it is here that I check my pulse and rekindle a thought.

So why would Jess pound on trauma? She’s writing a book on it from a visual perspective so not a trauma theory but an image theory on trauma with special attention to photography. Which we know by now started well before modern optics (I’m thinking holes in pyramids that peak light on celestials events through time, in tombs, for one). Why? She hasn’t ever even hinted at depression. We’re talking foul muses here; Images of stiletto healed women crushing the skulls of living kittens for sexual fetish and fouler; Death from above, the crushing weight of cluster bombs on terrorized citizens too poor or proud to move aside, shifting realities and false photo-merges that reshape a moment from despair to apparent belief and lives shaped entirely by deformities, outside the bounds of social brevity, outside even pulp or drug store romance novels pumped out by the 80,000 word rubbish heap thousands. The questioning of perceptions of reality and reality of perceptions. If depression doesn’t bring one here, what does? Death in droves. Death, death everywhere so let’s all have a drink! Death from Lupus, the autoimmune hell ride that gives a woman five to forty (days to years). That kind of uncertainty opens eyes. That is certainty, that little fucker. Bye bye Diane (Arbus), you learned too much too soon. Gone. Bye bye Virginia (Wolfe), water won’t save you love. Bye bye, Francesca (Woodman), too close, too soon. The spirit moving through madness in sane states of understanding. Glorifying the doomed? Nope. Understanding the doomed? Yup. The learned of what’s poor. Making sense of it in academic necromancy. Keep watching children, it’s more than Mel.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Delight with the urchins while the oil socks the coral.

I awoke to the swoosh sound of windmill blades and memory of rain. When I finally came to consciousness there was no sound and no rain. Sara was asleep next to me. A bloody towel to my right spotted with semen and menstrual blood. The dog lay near the head of the mattress watching for signs. I kept thinking, “this is probably schizophrenia.” It’s not the first time I thought this. Once while dismounting the train in Belgrade I had a distinct thought that it was all a fiction, nothing real; plus it smelled like burning tires and the locals couldn’t corroborate – a sure sign of madnes. One can ride the swell of change like a champ, understand its currents. Act. That’s not me. I’m under the wave getting churned about with sand in my teeth. Most are watching from the shore, amazed by the fools perishing in the dangerous waters. But somehow I get calm when hope is abandoned and rise to the surface like a fluffy sliver of pork fat. Madness is not knowing; acting on ignorance, or rage, or abandon.

Delight with the urchins while the oil socks the coral. Darlin’ o’ darlin’, this is just what love is. And it goes on from there except I kind of stop myself before it gets too desperate and breathe deep and remember I’ve had four beers and some pills and the feeling will soon end and it won’t always stay beautiful despite my best efforts to keep it such.

Mack lost his job. How does a committed culinary artist like Mack, with three recent glowing reviews mentioning the man by name in this fair cosmopolitan city lose his work? One might ask. Power flogging. And it goes like this: Have a talk with “the man” to the buzzing and righteous tune of, perhaps, sir, more money as the wages are far lower than industry standards especially now that competence is clearly established and reputation built upon hard work and honest dedication. Receive response: house nigga’s still a house nigga, you work for what I pay you and that is what you are worth. Bye bye Mr. Man, hello desperation and fear and the American dream machine. And the machine they will get, for every decent human who has been graced by Mack’s loyalty and talent will pull together and answer to goodbyes with decisive action. Be damned the belligerent drunk, be damned the golfing fat ass that grips vainly at culinary glory in the shadows of better men, be damned the source of manpride womanizing that halted youth. Be damned that source of manpride that halted youth. The wave of change is rolling and we are over, under and between those tidal currents, and we understand now our toil.

And that is what we can count on, dear readers, because there is nothing more to lose. Not a lip smackin’, ass canin’, shit talkin’ thing. For youth! For youth.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Dinner with Caravaggio

Sigh. What a mess. Men n such. I was thinking of Hemmingway, about the raw and simple beauty of his phrasing. How one or two choppy lines in you feel the whole place and you get the guy. Homophobic womanizer and all. Probably gay. He shot himself in the head with a shotgun and died. Turned his brain to pink mist. But he made art of it (his life) and I honestly believe that he was just trying to work it out. Same as anyone does.

Sterz, Calder and I went to the Cajun place for dinner and got to talking about Chet Baker while the boy made friends with the bartender and a few of the waitresses. I know Chet’s music but little else. Sterz told the story. In the context of art, the man left a legacy. In life, thugs smashed his horn and front teeth in after drug addiction fucked him up for good. The story reminded me of Caravaggio, rumored to be a scrapper. A poor man with extraordinary talent who just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He swaggered around sixteenth century Italy beating the shit out fools who were dumb enough to engage. Eventually he killed a guy with his rapier in a scrap in Rome and was run down by the law 10 years or so later, a violent death.

Years ago I was talking to Garth after he spied the cover of the Illiad translation I was reading. It pictured the D-Day invasion at Normandy. The thing is full of fear. Men falling dead as the transport hold opens. Someone is always the first to die and someone the last. The question was, which one would I be? Garth just knew he’d be one of the guys to get whacked in the first few seconds. I just didn’t know who I’d be and have thought about that since.

Once, on a solo backcountry trip I fell, early in during a hailstorm while scrambling a scree field in a non-blazed valley. My ankle crunched and swelled up immediately so I wrapped it tight and continued as planned. The whole trip I was in pain. That night I camped on a precipice at the summit of a tall waterfall that fed the valley. I plunged the ankle in the still pool before the fall to reduce the swelling and prayed. The prayers were soft ones. They came easy. That night my niece Sara was born. When I heard the news I wept.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Pork Rind

It’s been a rough week. I was thinking this while I finished a late morning post smoke crap when I noticed the toilet paper was out. Only a small piece still glued to the cardboard dangled there and I was fairly certain I would require more. The fact that there was none is just pure stupidity on my part. Just about once a day I walk to the corner store for coke or beer and pass up the opportunity to buy a roll because my cheap ass doesn’t want to spend an extra quarter that the mini-mart demands over its competitors. This while purchasing a 16oz. of beverage for over 2 bucks or worse, the fifteen dollar six pack of micro-brew when clearly cost saving alternatives are widely available. So I wiped with my hand, swami style, and scrubbed up. Hell, half the world does it that way, good enough for me. Better shit on my hands than blood.

Blood, however, is a nasty reality of living as life in this city has revealed on all too frequent occasion. Get in it, really live in it and you eventually will be the target of violence. There are two fundamental choices as I see it; live in fear or face it. So, after many sober hours and an excellent foray to the love drenched, soul filled, Macio Parker show, I decided to face my aggressor, one on one, man to man, balls to the wall. I wore a white T, big ass brand name aviator sunglasses, black shorts, black cap, black sneaks and walked the entire distance (about ten miles) up to the lake to confront the Bro. Straight to the source of shit talkin’ ignorance that crossed the line with me two nights prior in that dive on the north end. It’s safe to say that I looked like a fag, a stupid one, but fuck it. I gave no escape route and told not a soul of my plan. One man against one man. I would give him two options right there in the light of day, right at the source of his nasty mouth shit talking, right there on his home ground, right there in front of the peeps and posy. Alone. No weapons. And that’s what I did. 10 miles, in the heat of summer, through the ghetto on foot is a long way to think about something and reconsider, to think things through, to back down maybe. I wanted to be certain. We’re men, not kids and these are real threats. Our earth, not his, not mine. So I walked, intently, without hesitation, directly to the source like a suicide bomber. Only my payload wasn’t strapped to my waist. I was simply a man with nothing more to lose and a clear message to deliver, “I will not tolerate any threats to my person now or in the future by he or any persons associated with him, or there will be consequences to pay.” Without hesitation I walked into his place of business (the source of the planned threat), removed my sunglasses, faced him directly, and audibly delivered the message in a clear, steady, assertive tone. I made no backup plans and had no plan for escape. He responded with indignant rage, attempted to lead me toward empty alley’s to which I followed, where he delivered directly and in no uncertain terms his hatred for me, his posy’s hatred for me and shouted repeated threats of harm and suffering for the indignity I caused his ego. I stood my ground, repeated my message and reminded him it was between us, man to man, and there I was facing him – no one else involved, no weapons, and I meant it. Fire raged in his eye, his fists clenched as he came within a foot of my face. I neither looked away nor backed down. I suggested he find a different outlet for his rage but that my message will apply indefinitely. Now this guy would have killed me for sure. For one thing, I am not a fighter, I have endurance and courage but that’s it. This dude is about 6 foot 4, 240 lbs., I’m about 5 foot 11, 170 lbs. My plan, if fists flew, was to pound relentlessly with full swings directly to the abdomen, drawing on endurance so long as I was conscious but I REALLY didn’t want that to happen. Then to my surprise he walked away, apologized, then re-enraged himself and came wild eyed back at me. I stood my ground, repeated my message, suggested again he find a different outlet for his rage. Then again, to my surprise, he drew his composure and suddenly threatened to call the police to have me forcibly removed from his property. I invited the call but now this was getting silly and since I wasn’t dead or unconscious it was time to move on. I reapplied my faggy glasses and did just that. It wasn’t until I walked on did I fully realize how much adrenaline and fear saturated my stubborn sponge of a brain.

The fucked up thing is this kind of shit actually gets people killed. All them “nigger” talkin’ motherfuckers can’t even begin to imagine the stress it must be to live with maybe two or three belligerent men under one roof. Bullies. Sane people leave, they use their mind, work hard and get out. But some never get out or don’t want to leave. Mean streets n such. There’s no way out of facing it and if you’re one who others don’t like, for whatever reason, then you’re kind-of fucked for life. May as well go out swinging or get your respect some other way, gangs and violence and death. Getting close to the source here and this fucker’s not pretty. It’s us. That’s America. Barrel down.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

compadres

I grew a big ol’ beard, painted my toenails a shear pearl white and started talking a lot more shit. Nearly three weeks into June and not a single night spent out under the stars, there’s something wrong with this picture. I start to get restless. Still I play nice, smile and keep a cool head (most of the time). I spent nearly the entire day looking through images of medical anomalies and scanning texts for relevant info to attach to it. Medical anomalies like conjoined twins and persons with tumors the size of water buffalo, men with no penis and sacks that hang heavy and full down past their knees and double the width. Illustrations and etchings made before the use of photosensitized plates depicting open brain surgery on schizophrenics and public flaying of criminals and prisoners. It’s a mad world but it seems, by evidence of what’s been pictured and there’s a whole lot of it, that it’s been a mad world. It simply just continues to be. I felt pretty damn fortunate that I haven’t to date been flailed alive and the only physical anomaly on this body, besides a single baby tooth that lacked an adult bud, is my double follicle chest hair which on occasion is more sexy than freakish. All in all, a sound enough mind and body to get me most places I need to go. But that’s the big picture, on a more manageable scale I’m a wreck and a real fucknut.

Last night I ended up at some north end bar, a dive that had a name which sounded like the name of a strip joint but wasn’t. I had images and image structures comprising the currents of my frontal lobe and a less than stellar outlook due to recent studio failures. A beer sounded good, as did a new place even if it was a shithole. So Sara, her friend (well a friend of her brothers) and I journeyed there via some shots at the Irish pub on the lake. For my part, when I get drunk usually it’s to get mellow, enjoy it, and that’s the point – I’m not really a drunk in that sense. Some folks get mean or stupid or giddy and their personality does a 180 but that’s not my game really, I just want to chill out and enjoy it and reprieve my mind from it’s looping infanticide. And I expect that of company or usually they aren’t company for long. Understanding, of course, that all of this is under average circumstance, not say after my wife fucks the biggest dead beat cumspot in the city claiming solidarity with “the plight of the black man” while drawing a probably otherwise decent man away from any responsibility to his kids, career or woman. That requires a three month bender, which, I believe, you, my loyal readers (all six of you), caught the tail end of back when these musings began. No, this was to be an average night with perhaps a bit of fun. The fun ended however when between bathroom breaks as Sara was at toilet, the dude (until that moment our drinking compadre) made it known to me that physical harm would come to my person if ever his friend, my lover, were to “get hurt” in any way, shape or form. Ten years ago I might have blinked or taken the advice from youthful inexperience but now, I didn’t even blink. Matter-of-fact I took a step closer and battled every man nerve within me not to punch that motherfucker square in the throat. It was somehow too much, all humor left to make way for shit talking ignorance. Hate burned in my heart as it became clear that not only this man but my lover’s brother somehow “don’t like me.” Men often “don’t like me.” My friend’s say it’s because I’m intimidating, that I focus too intently and look people in the eye too long. This may be but I can’t see it. I think its money, like, if I had it or looked like I had it that evening, shit-for-brains would at least have shut his mouth. I told Sara what was happening audibly in front of the dude when she returned which made it that much more uncomfortable and looked to her for some sign on how to proceed. She politely allowed the talk to continue (what could she do really?) and announced our plans to leave shortly thereafter. Without incident that’s what we did, then departed company early the next morning and haven’t spoken since.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

a kid got shot in the head and died

Make a few lefts in this town. From the studio, mount up, leave the goat to graze its yard, ride left up Main, over the river, past town hall, past Lofton school for troubled kids, over the tracks, down through and past Genesee Street, continue west, turn left on Thurston, follow south through lively pedestrian traffic to 544 on the corner of Midvale, park, pray, weep for a dead boy.

I sit here twiddling my beard just as I did there on that crowded corner. Two days ago a boy got shot in the head while sitting in the back of a friend’s car, a homicide victim. This boy was 17 years old. He leaves behind two children, one just three days old. The cops don’t have a suspect and are not likely to find one. Word on the street is there is no word on the street. No snitching. And that is that. This story passes by almost unnoticed; it’s the twenty fourth homicide in Rochester so far this year. Per capita, the most violent city in New York with rates far above New York City, Albany and Buffalo. Jayla follows the stories, makes photographs of the shrines built by the concerned and affected and writes about it when the muse hits. So when she forwarded the story along in a matter of fact tone in the same breath as the weather and accolades of a successful opening the night before I followed the link and read on. In all, about three lines of information – kid’s dead, family’s angry, silver car, 544 Thurston, bullet to brain. Attached: a call to vigil Monday evening 6:30 at the site of the murder. So we go.

No less than three preachers in, the message is clear. The folks who kill are far gone from the generation prior. “Praise Jesus! Use your fists!” A prayer to the lord god made flesh that boys would be men and fucking fight with fists instead of guns and have a chance to fight another day. Hip Hop takes its hits, “kids is lost their way! We needs to find a betta way! Amen!” “Amen!” Words against the culture of silence, “When death come knockin’ on yo’ front door, then you know. By then is too late!” “Praise the lord! You gotta speak out or you be next!” “Amen!” No shit. Scan the crowd, the killer could be there. Probably young, teens, early twenties. Speak up and one among us goes away for twenty years at least. Brothers weeping. What are they to do? Brother protects brother. A rage burns in hearts of men and nothing much can be said to suppress that fire. I would kill for my brother for Christ’s sake or at least struggle hard and long for an alternate answer. Light a candle, listen, sing, weep behind dark lenses and go. Another night, Jazzfest kickin’, studio waiting for tomorrow’s project, crowd disperses. No chance it’s the last one in ROC this year. Not by a long shot.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

pRosé

pRosé. As in p, (p[=e] p[=e]) v. The action of bladder release, actively urinating in real time. As in Rose, Peter Edward (Pete), Sr., disgraced antihero of American Major League Baseball and/or, Ro, as in /row/ n. A noisy, turbulent quarrel or disturbance, a brawl. é, as in ey [OE. Ei, ey] interj. An expression of inquiry or slight surprise and/or é, as in “Aaaay!”, Arthur Fonzarelli, the Fonz, high school drop out, reformed gang member, avid angler (in real time). pRosé

About a year ago I came across a homeless man while feeling joyous and happy about my work with the kids. I felt so good I was greeting every passerby with a fond and sincere "Good Morning!"; in love with the people, in love with my city, in love with life. I could have kissed everyone, bagged their groceries, scrubbed their kitchens, waxed their vehicles, pulled weeds from their gardens, popped their stubborn acne, washed their feet, and socks, emptied the contents of my wallet to prove it. I was in love that morning. I'd already had a number of pleasant exchanges on that stroll and as I approached this homeless man pushing his cart filled with cans of/for redemption on his way to the grocer to unload and get paid, I smiled huge and offered my fond and sincere "Good Morning!" Now he was struggling with that cart behind the weight of his booty and about a mile yet from the grocer and I believed wholly in my heart that our exchange and acknowledgment of each other on such a beautiful day would result in nothing other than mutual respect and shared dignity. His response, however, was a swift and decisive blow by closed fist to my upper torso. The blow was forceful and as full a strike as the man could deliver but still too weak to halt my progress. I attempted no response, continued forward on my stroll and failed that day to audibly greet another soul.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

natural disasters

Once signs unfold and become clear and a part of consciousness there is little one can do to hide them or deny them. Like the Californians who see the clouds amass in January and know that the 90 days of sunshine is about to end and the flash floods about to begin, floods that produce muddy earth and slick roads and damp parties and damper spirits. Or in the dry western forests after 10 years of waning precipitation and a late spring of unseasonable highs with hard dry winds one knows, despite a strong desire to believe otherwise, that when the lightning storms come, and they always come, they will bring fire. Huge fires, the kind that level forests, destroy entire populations, choke out cities. Native ranchers hold out to fight the fire and the wind and dust and smoke in order to protect their holdings. And the bullshit ranchers, nouveau rich folks usually, hire others or mobilize the National Guard and the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management and any and all local, state and federal organization to retard the force of the thing. The ultimate cause of such raging destruction can be argued and is and will be, but once one has faced the reality and power of the thing, and after the flood or fire or wind or rains win and structures fall, whether they are yours or your neighbor's or your people's, ignorance is wiped clean from the equation. Facing it is all there is. When the heat does not relent and there is no fire, with each day passing anxiety builds. The prepared move toward safety. The ignorant, and that is most of us, remain for lack of resources or from sheer exhaustion or laziness or brazen stupidity.

A life in art is to live with signs of appending doom. The forest is dry and electricity in the air. Move toward safety. The signs came this morning. Over the past few weeks good humor has slowly been crept over by complacency and annoyance and for the second or third day this week Sara has left aggravated although she insists later, not. The signs to me are clear. It starts here. We begin to hate one another. Lose connection. Maybe that's why I started growing a beard, to hide behind it and protect from the coming blow. I mention these signs to her and she resists. Poor girl, I know she knows. "Pick a date darlin'. Time to move out. Clouds are amassing." "What the hell are you talking about?" She's got a point. "Nothing." In fighting, fear, superstition, anger, fucking, fisting, shame.

On the brink of total poverty, making inroads with the bums just in case the need arises to enter the homeless economy, I make a few calls and suddenly I'm fine, through the summer at least. I need the freedom, poverty is the price. Always relative. Pro Arté, flowery things hiding raw portraits coated in polyeurethane or the moving stills. I ripped the name off from the classical guitar strings. Pretty absurd so I thought I'd use it. Now I just need some injection molded frames – all renaissancey to contrast the mathematic algorithmic spooks that pixelly digi things wrought. Oy. If I were a horse I'd 've been shot dead years ago…

Sunday, June 3, 2007

rings

The apartment’s a mess. Among the clutter are my lover’s spent birth control; on the kitchen sink, on the hearth next to the Buddha, on the stack of magazines, under the ashtray, in the underwear drawer, one even made it into the laptop case. They’re the kind that ring the cervix and release hormone from inside the cunt. No daily pill to remember, etc. She’s the first woman I’ve ever dated that doesn’t have a nasty period, no psycho shit at the end of her cycle. I gotta say, it’s nice, so I kind of like the rings lying about, like a celebration. I figure I’d make some type of artwork with them so I asked her to save ‘em. Little plastic rings that spend a month up her cunt then clutter the pad. In a few more months I’ll frame ‘em up like Olympic rings, a tribute to women.

When I got married we bought rings, fell for the whole deal. Had them made from platinum, hers with a diamond. Mine now sits in a box in the bathroom with the toiletries, a symbol of ideals buried under hygiene products. I had it out today and looked at it for a long while. Rolled it around my palm, scanned the scuffs by fingertip and kind of marveled at the sheer weight of it. There’s enough platinum in that fucker to make hundreds of prints. I decided that’s what I’d do. Grind it down as needed, mix emulsion, print portraits, mark it’s dissolution over years then sell the work to collecting institutions or give them away to those who can appreciate the effort. All of it.