Coming home today

I got off the subway at Spring Street. Took a walk through SoHo to the Indi Theater on Houston to see what was currently playing. I could have just as easily looked movies up online at work but I liked the luxury of seeing for myself what was on the marquis. I love marquis. Too bad they are not given the importance they once had in advertising entertainment.

Walking back from the theater, disappointed by the choices. I can’t wit till next week’s releases. A film I set dressed last summer was picked up at Sundance and has been getting great press for it young leads and amazing soundtrack.

I stopped at a patisserie where a fey young black pastry chef talked my into an orange brioche and a dark chocolate torte with a caramel crisp center topped with pine nuts. A few steps out the door a dirty tattoo young guy sat pathetically on the sidewalk asking for change. I said I had none and walked by only to reconsider and turned and offer him the brioche.

There was no way he was getting my torte. He accepted it without making eye contact and gave a sheepish half heart thanks.

I checked out one of my favorite soho stores Evolution. Thought about investing in starting a cabinet of oddities. I eyed scorpions and colorful beetle in glass vile, fossils, and monkey paws all under $20. I decided to wait till fall and maybe build my own cabinet.

I walked past my old employer building. A crazy Israeli artist who placed a suspicious village voice ad for an artist assistant and despite my instinct responded to. It was a fine job, easy money photoshoping unoriginal photos he took around New York and then blew up and mounted on plexi glass to sell to tourist and people with a lot of wall space and no artistic taste.

Got paid under the table and spent most of my time in his studio space/ apartment dodging his random bunch of hanger ons and noxious personal hippie assistant whom all wanted to share their life story despite my obvious disinterest.

One of the things I liked most about the job was walking through his neighborhood and the pleasant smells that I would pass on the way to his apartment. The high end coffee shop, the patisserie, and the amazing soap shop feet from his grungy door way. I liked how the pleasant smell of what ever soap of the day was being hand made in the shop juxtaposed the pissed stained door to his building and constant guard of sad bearded homeless person sitting by it with out stretch hand.

On the subway I sat by a young lesbian couple sporting rainbow wrist bands and anklets. Today was the guy pride parade. They dressed sporty and were both natural pretty.

An absurdly large family sat on the end of the train car. There was a load mid western looking man with a very blonde child on his lap and about 10 other Scandinavian looking children ranging in ages surrounding him. They seemed mid western and I wondered if they were Mormons. They kids were half sullen and the other half obnoxiously engaging. I was glad I was not sitting closer to them. Happy to be by the loving lesbians.

I wondered what these two worlds may have thought of one another. Everyone one eyed the large family with suspension. They were so out of place, I think a Muslim man would have gone little noticed next to them. The lesbians got off at the next stop and I could see the older kids eyeing them and whispering while their parents fain disinterest.

MoCCA Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art

MoCCA Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art http://www.moccany.org/artfest-main.html

Wim Delvoye's Tattooed Pigs

Birthday Wishes

I really just wanted to skip this one to be honest. I just wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening and make it like another day. Knowing I would never be able to really do that, even if no one else acknowledge it. Once alone in my room on the day I would surely have a sinking feeling of all my regrets.

A good friend wouldn’t let me forget that day though. She asked me several time in the days before if I was sure I didn’t want to do anything. And though I insisted she would just politely and none judgmentally just ask again days later to be sure.

Then the night before, we were sitting around after a rained out rooftop party in Bushwick and she asked once more, this time asking if there was anything I have ever really wanted to do and haven’t yet and she would research it for me.

I thought, and like anything when asked on the spot I went blank. But then one thing occurred to me. I have long wanted to go to the shooting range and have had many opportunities crap out.

My mom had gotten her gun license when I was in high school. She did it secretively, after months of sneaking out the local gun range for lesson. At the time she was working as a night auditor at a Comfort Inn off the highway and while trying to keep herself awake she would read Gun and Ammo magazines the mysteriously started getting sent the hotel. They got her thinking, and after a free intro class where she got a bull’s eye on the first shot she was hooked.

This was shocking news seeing as though my mom can’t even recognize me without her glasses when I am sitting right across the room.

Anyways, we looked online for gun ranges, which there are very few in the Manhattan/ Brooklyn area. I am kind of glad of that actually, I wouldn’t want gun enthusiast riding the subway to ranges all over New York. Not finding any pricing, we had to wait till the next morning to find out if I had to make an appointment or if I could even swing the range fee.

I woke up early that Sunday morning, before 11am even. And was sad to find out that in New York State it is illegal to fire a gun without a gun license. You may though shoot a shoot gun at the price of $55. I though about it for a minute, though it would be fun to pretend I was an unruly backwoods father of an “overactive” teenage daughter I was trying to force some unfortunate boy into marrying but $55 was too much to pay to play hill billy, so I passed.

Sad I went down to the market for b-day snow cone and on my way in I past a poster. I had forgotten all about it, today was the mermaid parade at Coney Island. I missed it last year when Javier asked me to go, cuz I was too broke to afford a train and hotdog.

As soon as Brandi was free from hot yoga and properly showered off, she biked over so we could get the train which I later realized would have been faster if I had come to her neighborhood.

Amanda has just joined our New York crew, and she was happy to meet us during a break in her ridiculously over pack schedule of dining with her random assortment of Tulane, Scad, and Columbus friends and trying to find an apartment. Her energy and drive like many of SCAD grad girl friends always makes me seem like such a slug. But a colorful slug if you will.

Coney with a mad house of half naked people roaming the streets wearing self created costumes of various sea life, topless ladies with nothing but sea shells or mesh keeping them “modest”. I saw so many ass cracks and nipples that day. We just missed the parade but a sea of nakedness covered in a rainbow of body paint still roamed to streets and boardwalk. Everything had a line, but really didn’t mind it because I love people watching and today the usually colorful crowd of Coney was even more amazing. The usual goomba Brooklyn boys were of course around but the Hasidic and older community was today run out by bare breasted sea urchins and she-male mermaids.

We got a $20 unlimited daiquiri, sat on the beach where we met up with some familiar SCAD faces whom had secured us a spot between a Mexican family making bank selling beach umbrellas and another Mexican family with a bunch of little children without proper swim wear whom were cracking me up with there full saggy diapers full of ocean. At one point one of them came close to Maggie and pulled down his bottom and peed a foot from her. It was more funny then upsetting. And when ever another came close I would go, “now don’t pee over here…no peepee”.

My ultimate goal was to see a freak show. I had been here once before on the off season but I was too broke to do much more then roam the boardwalk. It was a good show, not great but fun to experience.

The ringmaster was agreed by me and Brandi too be very sexy in a creepy lanky mischievous way. Kind of reminded me of a guy we knew at SCAD, he too was lanky and had this strange sex appeal that every film girl no matter their taste found charming. A women light a torch with her tongue and danced with a python, another swallowed swords and another beautifully ate fire.

But as nice as this day was it was not the reason why this birthday was one of my favorites. What really made it special was the fact that I would have liked better to have not even acknowledge it. To have put my head in the sand and forget about the passing of time, but the fact that people whom care about me wouldn’t let me do that. They didn’t drag me kicking and screaming from my self defeatism, rather they without solicitation just acknowledge me fondly and in ways that made me realize if anything my life is full of wonderfully caring people.

The day of birthday my voice mail was over flowing with random borage of people singing manic crazy versions of happy birthday, most sounded like metal or punk version of the song ending with a sincere Happy Birthday wish. My brother even left a heart felt call and texted me twice, this is a rare display of affection on his part. He even awkwardly called me “small fry” in his text, a term of brotherly affection he has never used in person.

When Brandi arrived at my house she gave me a “bouquet” of 4 scarves, each different in style and color that she found in thrift shops. It was a silly sloppy bunched together handful of fabric, but the idea of it was so unique and exactly the kind of thing I would cherish.

Later my mom called and offered me use of her credit card, which I hold for emergencies but have rarely used, to buy myself up to $40 worth of chocolate at Munson f they have them in NY. I told her I am watching my diet and she suggested I use it towards books I want to buy. Now you must understand in the history of my mothers gifts to me, she has though loving tried, she has rarely gotten me something I would actually like or use. And her finally after years of trying too hard, she just off the cuff suggests the best gift idea ever. I love buying books and after a search on Amazon I was able to find 3 books I really wanted at ridiculous discounts.

The day after my birthday Amanda came to my gallery job with a handful of lavender roses, they were amazing in their flawlessness. We had lunch in the gallery and looked for apartment for her online. no one but my family had ever given me flowers, she could have arrived with mums or dandelions and I would have been equally touched. When I got home I hung them from the hooks in our kitchen meant for our pot and pans hopefully making a bouquet that would last forever.

When I got home too there was a package for me, a poster of edible mushrooms with no note attached. At first I thought I ordered it and forgot,. I often look online at similar posters of illustration of the variety of things in this style, like Asian fish, North American birds, creature of the sea, etc. But for some reason because it was mushrooms in particular I thought of Paula. Don’t ask why, I think if it had been mollusk I would have thought the same. Just an odd association I have for her.

Turns out she did send it to me, she thought o fit because of a conversation we had 4 months earlier when I was working for chef whom has these amazing posters all down the hall. She look them up and found they were only able to be purchased in Euros, but she found a poster similar and sent it to me.

The thing is my year has been full of a lot of rejection. A lot of try and fail and though so much of my time has been swinging from job to job, opportunities found and lost, one thing is constant , the affection of these people whom despite all my brashness, by stubborn disconnect, our distance at times, they have really never stopped believing in me. This is something so precious and unfortunately not often enough appreciate in one daily life. Thank you all for being so wonderful to be my friend and loved one.

New Crush

Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel , was an eminent German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including phylum, phylogeny, ecology and the kingdom Protista. Haeckel promoted Charles Darwin's work in Germany and developed the controversial recapitulation theory ("ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny") claiming that an individual organism's biological development, or ontogeny, parallels and summarizes its species' entire evolutionary development, or phylogeny.
The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-colour illustrations of animals and sea creatures (see: Kunstformen der Natur, "Artforms of Nature"). As a philosopher, Ernst Haeckel wrote Die Welträthsel (1895-1899, in English, The Riddle of the Universe, 1901), the genesis for the term "world riddle" (Welträthsel); and Freedom in Science and Teaching[2] to support teaching evolution.
In the United States, Mount Haeckel, a 13,418 ft (4,090 m) summit in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, overlooking the Evolution Basin, is named in his honor, as are another Mount Haeckel, a 2,941 m (9,650 ft) summit in New Zealand; and the asteroid 12323 Häckel.
The Ernst Haeckel house ("Villa Medusa") in Jena, Germany contains a historic library.

HUNTER STABLER Cut Paper

My artistic inspiration of the week comes from the artist Hunter Stabler amazing cut paper creations. i can only dream to have the patience and skill with my exacto that this man has. He is brilliant. his work is currently in display in Philadelphia at the P ageant gallery. I am hoping to catch a train to Phili soon to go tubing with my favorite metal princess . I cannot wait to see this pieces in person.

Thou you wouldn’t know it from reading my writing, I have been writing almost all my life. I have kept random journals since I was very young. In all that time I have barely come to understand proper punctuation or create an effect story telling structure.

I just tend to sit down with little idea what I want to say or how I want it to be said . write one word after another till I just cannot stand it anymore.

I don’t know that anything I ever wrote said anything, spoke to any one, meant anything to anyone , including my self.

Sometimes I just wrote for the satisfaction of hearing the clicking of the keys on my keyboard. Sometimes I had been inspired to create a story. Sometimes I just had to get my pubescent feelings out of my head before they drove me insane.

Sometimes I just saw something in my day to day that interested me and didn’t want it to get lost in the haze of my notoriously spotted memory. Mostly it was just that. I fear of losing those little moments that seemed to fascinate me, but others didn’t seem so into. I wrote them down because they once seemed special and I didn’t want to lose them, lose that moment where something could be special, and lose that part of myself that found things special.

A friend told me I had a habit of reacting excitedly over thing that really weren’t that special. At the moment she said that i felt embarrassed of myself. I felt like I was silly , immature, and had for years made a fool of myself.

I always smile and react to babies and small children, I wanna pet strangers hair when it exceptional nice, I will pet everyone whom passes me dog, I smell things ( not just flowers , food or books( but also the bark of trees or people that interest me) just to better absorb a moment, I like to speak to unique looking people( man whom looks like Mr. T , or subway performers), I get wide eyed when I see someone whom is unusually short or fat, point out object or details of people living spaces and ask them to tell me about there originals.

She made me feel frivolous for doing this. I also felt that falling feeling you get when you realize someone you care about really doesn’t understand you. Doesn’t see the unusually things you do and still care for you without judgement, as a good friend should. I felt that lonely feeling you get when you’re in the room with someone you once shared the best laughs with and now made you fall silent and unsure of yourself.

I guess that’s why I write. Paper can’t do that to you. It’s a dialog with your self, your inner self the one that bares no need for explanation. I write so I can sleep at night, so I can care for my friends with judgment, so I can still find joy in the everyday, so I can be open to the world, to love, to creativity, to stories of the past and possibilities of the future.

I may find everyday things of interest for longer then the usual person, I may stop and photography cracks in the street or ceiling tiles because I like how they resemble the way rivers look on maps or the way buildings look from above , I may smell other peoples coffee or wine, I may ask stranger why their shoes are so cracked hoping to hear their life stories, but in my journals this is all expectable. Even necessary. Perhaps only in journals am I expectable as I am.

My body Rejected

My body was rejected. Ever since I moved to New York I have been obsessed with trying to get into a clinic trail or medical study of some kind. Every week I peruse the back pages of the village voice where NYU and various other organizations take out blocks of space asking for a variety of “volunteers” prick and poke at.

There are usually about 3 or 4 pages of these colorful ads asking for the young and old, ladies and gentleman, and peoples of all kinds of backgrounds and usages.

There are always ads are egg donation at NYU or sleep studies at some fancy sleep institute. Lately I have been seeing some interesting ads asking for senior citizens in good health ages 65-85. I got curious about that one and called to see what it was about but only got a machine.

Senior citizens don’t seem like the usual type of person seeking out money through clinical trails, they especially don’t seem like the type to be reading the back pages of the village voice. After the clinical trail ads and Ask a Mexican, the VV descends into a colorful wallpaper of sex ads and “escorts” services.

There is also a borage of studies for people with various drug usage, cocaine users, marijuana, meth, and lately ecstasy ads have been popping up. I called the E ad. They wanted people to come to Baltimore and stay for week for in-house study. I took a survey of my drug history over the phone with this girl who sounded like a perky young college student. I wonder how many odd balls have called and ended up hitting on her. Something about the informality of her tone made me imagine her working from home, taking calls while watching Rachael Ray, occasionally having to enduring an obnoxious drug user who wanted to know what she looked like while she asked him what he’s shot up in the last year.

She individually asked me what drugs I had taken, some I had never even heard of. I lied and said I had taken E twice, which I hadn’t even done once. Not because I was against it obviously, but because when I was in high school I had a group of friend whom has E parties and they always told me how sexual amazing it was. I guess I always want to save such a sexually amazing experience for someone special. Why waste it on some d-bag I would come to not care about years later.

The girl told me I wasn’t right for the trail, I didn’t have the type if drug usage they were looking for. This was a familiar rejection. I had previously been rejected from a depression study because I was too anxious, rejected from a anxiety study because I was to depressed, a sleep study because my sleep pattern wasn’t consist enough, a sex study because I wasn’t active enough and most recently I after 4 trails of testing I was deemed not a good candidate for egg donation because of alcoholism in my family and my possible learning disabilities. Well, as NYU put it. I tested high in intelligence and creative reasoning but also high for odd or unorthodox thinking patterns consistent with ADD.

I tried to lie about my ADD but it seems I couldn’t get around the 500 true/false questioned tests that determine personality and behavior. I took that rejection that hardest because it most felt like a rejection of me, the fundamentals that make me up. I felt rejected as a genetic specimen, unusable and undesirable at my biologic core. The rest I could write off as a quark of my personal inconsistency not making me, as usually, the obvious choice.

But this reject was of me, my family, and the things that make me up, my mind, how it works, and how I could pass on a part of my dysfunction to others. It still hurts.

In college I read Rebel without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez and I was fascinated by his resolved to get his project made. He sold himself into month long in-house clinical trails where he’d take the time to write and make a couple grand at a time to finance his upcoming project El Mariachi. This is one of the few things I find endearing about RR. Actually its knowing that he was so desperate to make his film happen he was willing to literally sell himself and risk his future health, makes me less judgmental of his possibly being a douche in real life, as I suspect he may be.

Besides being painfully broke all the time and having student loan officers calling me on a daily basis, my main intention for wanting to be apart of a study was just plain curiosity. I was curios about the process of it all, the organizations, the selection process, and most of all my own bodies’ reaction to being intentionally manipulated.

Ever since I got my tattoo I have become acutely aware of my body, my flesh, my blood. It occurred to me as I laid there allowing some stranger to poke needles into my flesh all so I could control the way a patch of my skin will appear for the rest of my life.

We don’t really think of how much we do and do not control of our own bodies.

Who is really in charge? Though we have a conscious mind much of the rest of our form just seems to take care of itself. We may feed, and cleanse ourselves, work a few voluntary muscles but for the most part, our bodies are made up of systems of bit and pieces that really just do their own thing.

Some people have made it an obsession trying to have greater ownership of their mind and bodies. Body builders for instance spend a bulk of there energy focusing on there form and sculpting I to their ideology. Some academics have dedicated their lives to expending their mental energies, studying ways of thought and how to greaten their ability to retain information.

The vitamin and well being industry is a money making volcanoes, spewing with ways to expand your memory, build lean muscle, have greater energy, have greater control over your emotional state, sexual state, improve your digestion, make your blood flow better, or just “improve” what ever system in your body you come to think isn’t doing the job well enough on its own.

So far I have had little luck getting to experiment; I fit none of the parameters so far. Perhaps it’s for the best. Maybe I would get addicted to this kind of experimentation; maybe I would try to push it further. Try something further invasive, like plastic surgery. Which I too have a curiosity for.

The idea a person would voluntarily go under the knife, not only volunteer but orchestrate the procedure. Selectively choose their torture. I am very curious about the mentality and physical experience of plastic surgery. Luckily I cannot just volunteer and benefit from it financially in the same way I could clinical trails. Plastic surgery is a risk you pay for with more then just a risk to your body. Too poor for such indulgences. For the best it all seems.

Ideally I want to get into a sleep depravation study. Spend a few days being watched as I am kept up doing word puzzles and mental challenges. But as I said I am not even qualified to be kept awake. Too irregular for even sleep.

The Last Mistress