Saturday, November 28, 2015

UNCONDITIONAL BLOG

Friends,

*PLEASE READ THIS BLOG IN SARAH SILVERMAN'S VOICE*

[I the undersigned agree to this term and condition] X______________________________

Well, friends, in about a week or so I will be going through puberty again. This may sound like one of my super-secretive ultra-witchy coded-backhanded attempts at surrealistic realism. But honestly, you can take it at face value. Don't read between the lines (in Silverman's dulcet-electric tones).

Here's another thing--I forgot to worry about polka dots. When I take the time to worry about every tiny thing that could possibly go wrong in any given situation, then usually nothing goes wrong. But it didn't even occur to me to worry about the dots. Now they are here, doing the polka on my flesh. Uh-oh. And it's too late to worry so I'll just have to deal…

Here's another thing: Thanksgiving is all about shopping and football. And gluttony. But for me Thanksgiving has always been a secure place from which to assess the entire year & decide what to be most thankful for.

I saw lots of thankful posts on Facebook yesterday & I loved seeing that even if I didn't comment or hit the 'like' button as many times as I wanted to. I think we really have shifted from being an ego-driven species to being a spirit-driven species in just a matter of years.

I like to say this shift started happening around 12-21-12. But it really started right after 9/11. It has just taken this long for enough of us to get it. And we couldn't have done it without Facebook (or MySpace. Don't forget about MySpace. MySpace is the Mary to Facebook's Jesus). 

And we couldn't have done it without making mistakes. Oh, I've made many mistakes in this life! But I've been watching you & you have made many mistakes too. But I don't feel as horrible about my (or your) mistakes as I once did.

It's all okay. And the millennials will do a much better job at facilitating evolution than any other generation. Once they turn 40, that is. They still have to go through their own generational puberty pangs.

So…yeah…thankful for Humanitor surging ahead in its evolution.

Another thing I'm thankful for is that 2015 was not 2014. 2014 was unspeakable. But I will never forget it. Never bury it deep in my anatomical graveyard. And I will indeed speak about it. Someday soon--

--because I've seen & heard a lot about anxiety & depression going off the charts recently. And I have my little 2 cent contribution to that conversation. But not today.

Today I want to enjoy how thankful I am for many things, not just the date on the calendar ( and in spite of these hideous polka dots!)

*********************************
During our move I found lots of old boxes of stuff. Including some Childhood Art!! Here we see a very old version of Vin & Juliet. In 1st grade I became obsessed with wanting to be Chinese. [This was well before the Michael Derrick Hudson scandal or the Rachel Dolezal fiasco] I was not only gender dysphoric, but racially distressed. I think my yearning to be Chinese had more to do with past life remembrances than any real understanding of race. But all of my artwork from 1st-2nd grade was Asian inspired.


NOW--HERE IS SOME SURREALISTIC REALISM TO SINK YOUR EYEBALLS INTO !

How do you make new friends? How do you recover from 40 years of grief that welled up overnight and spilled from the rotten core of your soul all at once? What is this boulder left sitting in my chest? Who do I call to haul it away? Surgeon? Saul? Jim Beam? I'll just sing through it--my boulder song. The rock song that'll finally make me a star. Just in time to save the world from Hard Sparkle Countrycore and Postgangsta Gratitude List Hiphop. How do you make new music? How do you know where to put the words you want to say? How do you know you've wandered to the ends of the internet? How do you ask your imagination for forgiveness? 10-30-15 

*****

Forced spontaneity is ripping at a fog east of the highway. It's tying a spider web at all four corners of my mind with the pair of hands I keep in my skull. It's pretending there's no spider in any of the silken strands. It's pulling teeth from that spider's phantom jawline. It's chewing on a rough idea that tastes like a cow pie in July. It's November with 80 percent humidity and moderate chop. It's 50 percent anxiety in the morning--down from 100 percent a year ago. [Yay] 11-4-15

*****
Even the Cat In The Hat had to be Asian


Aggravated apiary blessed by cathartic calm. Deafening didact eliminated early from fatal germ galaxy. How hexagonal it is juggling javelins, kidnapping killjoys, letting loose…My maudlin neighbor narrates octopus obituaries. Purple pansies quell quarrels, relieve riots. Savage songbirds tag trenchant uvulas under 'vintage vomitoria.' Why would xylophones Xray young yaks, zone zodiacs? 11-19-15

*****

Pixel rolls on the patio, belly up, purr-meowing in permutations of sunlight that penetrate this thick rainy day. Eloise is about to step outside when an airplane growls by. She waits with her ears on crooked then joins us shyly.

Pixel eats a spider right out of its web. Eloise sits, gopher-like, attentive, her big pink schnozz enraptured by something I can't see.

There is lots of debris on the porch. I think it is mud and leaves from the rain. It is really a bunch of dead frogs.

As I sweep I realize some of the frogs are still alive, and it becomes a rescue mission. Pixel gets a frog before I can save it and a leg goes missing. Eloise, more enchanted by the birds & squirrels beyond the screen, is missing out on easy meat. She chatters back at a squirrel. It tells its friends about the dangerous psychopath in their midst.

I go get my computer and some coffee. I sit at the picnic table and type something about my cats.  11-22-15

*****

A fun drawing from 3rd grade


Where is the edge of this existence and how do I get there? Or, rather, how many times have I been there? I think the edge isn't so much a distal drop-off as it is these bodies we live in. When you live in a body that doesn't match your soul, you live in mid-fall. A dead leaf who will get raked into a mass grave if it ever touches land. You fall a hundred times a day as people call you "miss, miss, ma'am." You refrain from shooting anyone but you hiss and spit like a cobra-panther. You bury yourself in a grave of flannel 2 sizes too large and you fill your head with another world. In your head-world, there is no country music. There is no hormonal divide. And there are no people, only angels sharing space like pie. Every living moment an act of divine street performance. 11-27-15

*****
And here's the very first incarnation of the Flowers in the Attic drawing. Probably 11 or 12 years old, but the drawing skill looks about Kindergarten. I added a 5th person to the line-up, because I always saw myself as the 5th Flowers in the Attic sibling. I'm the boy on the right.


The most recent Flowers in the Attic sketch. From 2011 Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook Project.



See you soon Octopus Diary-snoopers. I hope you enjoyed the childhood art gallery too!

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

STREAM OF SOLEMNITY

Friends,

I hope you are alive and well.

Today I was going to launch the Serious Topics series with a ramble about the stigma of mental illness. But some events have taken place in the world and I feel like I should say something about that:

Terror, people. If it takes a well-coordinated, large-scale attack on a city that is the designated hub of culture and romance on this planet to get people to understand that ISIS is everywhere, then I won't be upset about the "selective outrage" that follows.

I understand that most people in the U.S. don't dream of honeymooning in Beirut or have close friends spending Thanksgiving in Kenya. Beirut & Kenya are not hubs of romance, and that's okay. But ISIS did strike those places too and it didn't quite make the headline news here. And if it had made the news, would we have cared so much? No, we wouldn't.

In the last week though, ISIS has been very busy and very successful in doing harm in many places, including (now confirmed) planting a bomb on a Russian airplane, killing 200+ people.

And ISIS is here too, people. In our country. Right now. Masterminding the next big strike on their Playstation grapevine. 

Anti-Culture Conversations w/ Vin and Juliet. Realistic panel.


What can we do? Well, for one, we can all get on our Playstations and become citizen spies. We can all stay home which is a good idea but would contribute to the death of society {Meatspace!). We could censor ourselves and never talk about what a douch-y prophet of god Muhammed is, but then the terrorists would be winning. We could outlaw all religions, but that wouldn't stop people from doing things in accordance with what they believe.

Or how about this--We could live in a strict police state where everyone was heavily surveilled and every enclosed space was patrolled by "good guys with guns" and metal detectors and bomb-sniffing pooches.

If we want to know how to live in a world where radical terrorism could overshadow the "lone gunman who never got laid" at any moment, we could ask an Israeli or Palestinian how they live in such a world.

The fact is--there are too many people in the world. Until we understand how to populate the earth in direct proportion to its resources, there will always be an overflow of humans into the margins where anger, poverty and desperation live. Hoplology 101.

Cartoony panel. With visible brain activity.


********

There. Sorry to get preachy about shit that has yet to affect me personally. But I truly do see the potential for it to affect everyone (American, Canadian, Venezuelan, Australian, East European, British, South African, et al…) Global threat. Hoverboards be damned. Jet packs too.

Surreal panel. Enjoy.


NOW HERE'S SOME CREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS (CONDENSED):

I can't decide which I fear most--the world or my mind. Lately I'm caught in this full-size Chinese handcuff. A painful isolation drives me outside to see other faces, hear other voices. But what I see & hear is humanity's fading beauty, skins with customized lesions & shrapnel caught in the throat. Monstrous Humanitor, cackling inhumane at itself in the mirror. Robbing itself at grin-point. Selfishness ringing in operatic mezzo-soprano sing-song conspiracy notes. A cordial baritone dictatorship linking the food-chain to the fence. I run barefoot and destitute back to my cavernous skull, where once I found whatever I wished to be true. Where fantasy now meets solitary confinement.  10-14-15


Don't dilly dally with that ball and chain. Step right up to the plate glass sunrise. Answer your phone on the first prophetic ringtone to take down dictation to a crumbling dictatorship in an Arabian Springtime for Hitler--what a jerk! Get to work on your new screenplay about the guy with the car, and the gun, and the ego. Be sure to find time to masturbate to your coworker's wardrobe malfunction, whatever it may be--running hose, missed tampon, open zip bar code for I'm in the closet but get and come me in the bored room. 10-23-15 

Morning grey as a twisted spine. That's more like it, November. I've slumped in this waiting room crushed by eye contact and body odor so long I can't remember how many times I sang Happy Birthday into debt. Copy right, copy left. Over the shoulders of dying doctors shake the salt. Put some pepper in your step and in your diet to live forever. I only have the appetite for waiting. A trapezoid once so triangular. A mountain moved by humans becomes a plateau. A tablet crushed and snorted becomes your wild imagination. 11-10-15


**************


Good-bye Friends. I send you love through my computer screen, because that's the best I can do right now.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Another Layer of Words & Images Polluting Your Spotless Screen

FRIENDS,

How are you? I hope you are well. I can honestly say I feel better than I have in a year & a half. For this I am unspeakably grateful…not just forced-gratitude-list-grateful, but really, really, really fucking off the charts thankful.

If this life were a gratitude contest, I would be winning.

And I say that with more humility than you can read into a simple blog post.

[it's okay, you can laugh here]

I know I said that when we were settled in the new house I would be talking about some more serious issues here in The Octopus Documentary. And I'm working toward that. There is a lot of serious shit to address in the world. But I'm not ready to be serious yet. 

So please enjoy this backlog of Streamed Consciousness until I'm ready:

**********

And so I leave behind another haunted house. Who knew I had another family of ghosts tucked between heart and lungs. Fat, ugly emotions lodged like unchoice meats in that critical cavity. Intangible residents, still getting mail from Victoria's Secret and huckster dental associates. No resistance from elastic ribcage. Breathing became a worn out pair of underpants. All egos are dead. Yours too. Columbus is coming to get us again, only his ships will fly in from above: The Nina, the Pinta and the Droning Maria. 10-12-15

************

Like settlers we crossed the highway in our covered wagon/SUV hybrid. Left behind the genteel plains of Southern Pine, the numerology of eleven-eleven. Just as we left the wild, wild ghetto three years prior. The only soldiers we left behind were figurines. We foraged for mattresses and food. Our cats fought over the empty space by our sides, then shrunk to their haunches in the screened wilderness. We met other settlers who claimed our happiness would be arriving shortly. We explored on foot, found some old bones and a fresh corpse hanging. The turquoise walls closed around me like a storm of calm cement. 10-20-15

Lower Life-forms play Jeopardy!


************

I used to deal in words/I used to heal in images/Now there is layer of words & images polluting the skies of the minds and oceans of eyes/Now I need to find a bigger band-aid, a quieter rave/Now i sing my swollen heart back down to size/Now I stay home every night trying to solve discordant equations with my tiny dried up peanut brain/Now I will consult the Emotional Thesaurus whenever the dictionary won't do/Now I will fail as a human because my senses got the memo 10-24-15 

***********

Feeling numb in sensational places. I know each zip code boasts a bottle of top-shelf loneliness shaped just like me. Our own special brand--shared just out of reach. On the label--a sand spur, a bloodstain, a centipede. A silver border keeps it all in check like an electric fence. Throat of glass, tightened not by fire but fear. Belly vaulted against emotional extremes--joy is the enemy. Who could fall from that plane once more? Only a robot who doesn't care, whose belly doesn't tighten right before the climax. Only an auto-pilot's empty cockpit. 10-26-15 

***********

Warm on the porch…where are you November? I watch the windfall like wind made of anvils…the humidity a punching bag I can't hit hard enough…the sun a loud outgoing neighbor coughing in my face then asking me to help move potted plants across the yard. Useless work…concentration camp monotony…stone piles trading spaces then going home again to broth and rat turds…where is my October…the month I masturbated my mind back to happiness…how can I be happy when the weather won't cooperate? 11-2-15

It's a Potty!


**********

So…."Molly" is just the new name for Xtasy? I thought Molly was a whole new drug tweaked by the underground chemists for a new generation of tweakers. But it's pretty much the same chemical compound as Xtasy--the rave drug of my humble X-generation. If you know me at all, you know I dream of the invention of a new drug that solves all the problems of Humanitor. It would have to be a psychoactive happiness-maker as well as a pain-remover. It would have all the good properties of Xtasy, alcohol, marijuana and cocaine without being addictive or hangover-inducing. And let's just say it would cure cancer too! Oh, what a world we would live in if someone--anyone!--could concoct, finance, market, package & distribute such a product! When there is a presidential candidate whose main mission is to do this--why, then I will be so so INTERESTED in politics. Until then I will dream of an Ayahuasca adventure in Peru & continue to regard politics with satirical ennui. GOOD DAY. 11-5-15

************

Whew, that was a long stream! I promise to keep up in the future so I don't burden you like that again.



Enjoy everything you can…


Love-Vin

Friday, October 23, 2015

DONNIE TRUMPO: A FUTURE MEMORY

HEY FRIENDS!

Just wanted to let you know we made it to our new destination. We love our new house & the new neighborhood. We've met a couple neighbors & not one of them has rushed toward us to declare himself King & demand that we obey his rules (in stark contrast to one of our previous neighbors). 

Also, I'm delighted to present to you a brand new Future Memory. Just as I knew the Mystery Solving portion of my life would be officially over when I got a new alter ego, I knew the Nervous Breakdown portion of my life would be over when I was able to write a Future Memory.**

And Friends, yesterday was that day. So please enjoy---'Donnie Trumpo.'

**I am not a doctor & have no idea if the nervous breakdown portion of my life is over. But it feels like it (maybe) is.
Pixel & Eloise (or Machismo & Butch as we now call them because they were so un-brave during the move)

************************

Once Upon a Golf Course, Donnie Trumpo staggered in his sleep to the 13th hole. He swayed like a metronome and collapsed in a well-orchestrated heap.

After a lurid black-out Donnie awoke in a state of cold fusion. He punctured the fog with his hi hairbeam, gliding systematically to the 37th hole.

“Whaa??” he five ironed, “My golf empire has a 37th hole? I’m even richer than I pie charted!”

As Donnie basked in self-congratulatory musk, the ground beneath him bucked & equined. The air seemed to shift its position on public vaginal safety. He thought it was just his own power exercising its right to fuck shit up, but he turned to see---

“Kahn-ye??”

“Yes, Donnie. It is I, Kahn-ye. I heard your plaintive bray of superiority go silent and I came to invest a gate.”

“That’s terrific, Kahn-ye. But why are you wearing that heinous rabbit costume?”

“It’s not a costume, Donnie. It’s my time travel suit.”

“Time travel?? Kahn-ye, time travel is for losers. Why would a smart guy like you want to be anywhere but right now?”

“As President I must be able to go from now to then, and back again. Know what I’m sayin’?”

“President?? Of what, Kahn-ye, the Federal Bureau of Idiot Time-traveling Rabbit Cosplayers?”

“Now stop it, Donnie. I’m the President of the United States of America. I won’t have you laundering me with insults.”

Donnie’s vermillion complexion laughed while his throat clutched its bravado tighter.
“Very funny, Kahn-ye. Look, you’re a great guy—rich, handsome, intelligent. Like me. But you’re not the President of America. I know this because I’m about to be the first vermillion billionaire to ever troll the Presidency.”

Kahn-ye heated up his microphone and served Donnie a rap with 17 riders attached:

“It was the 3rd day of November
An election to remember
There was no front runner ‘CUZ
He was out in a comb over fuzz
Out on the 13th hole
Where I go to smoke a big bowl
And make my Presidential decisions
Affectin’ all my citizens…”

“That’s enough, Kahn-ye. I won’t be bullied by your gang gibberish. Now I’m going to have to ask you to take your big rabbit feet off my green!” Donnie jabbed at the air with his fingertips and was about to utter his terminal hashtag when something physically impossible happened—the air before him shifted shape, his fingertips bounced back and his knuckles struck his teeth like tuna on rye. “Whaa-aa??”

“Amalgamated pixels, Donnie. My wall of protection. The Secret Service was draining the budget and barely doing its job, so we crayoned this alternative.”



Donnie tapped the plasmatic air again. “Quit messing around, Kahn-ye. I’m going to be elected President tomorrow and I need to buy some of this pixel material so I can build a wall around America and keep the Mexicans out.”

Kahn-ye let out a trapezoidal laugh. “You missed it, Donnie. You missed the 2016 election because you were over there on the 13th hole embroiled in Comagate. This is the year 2022. I am President. And THIS is MY golf course!”

“2022—that’s impossible! It’s the night before MY election and I’m winning. No question. Now get off my testosterone course, you rapist!”

“Whooaa…no need to attack a nigga ad homonem. I guess I’m not getting through to you, Donnie. So I guess I’ll just glitch back to 2022.”

Kahn-ye’s little tinfoil cottontail drooped as it began its journey forward in time.

“What about the pixel guy!” Donnie celeried, “At least give me his number before you go!”

Kahn-ye utilized his deep pulsing auto-tune, “It’s not a pixel guy. It’s a whole team of sp/fx experts. And you can’t reach them from 2016, Donnie.”

“Are you kidding? I can do anything. I’m Donnie Trumpo. Now give me their number.”

Kahn-ye continued his forward trek.

“Hey! Don’t propel away from me when I’m asking for a favor! Who do you think you are??”

“I’m President West. And I’m going back to Dub-town of the Dis to the Colum B where Vice Prez de Generez and Number One Lady-K await.”

Never one to take slang for an answer, Donnie gave chase. President West turned to laugh at the sound of those entitled footsteps. For he knew that Donnie would—

***SMASH***

---into the archive of amalgamated pixels protecting his person.

“You can’t laugh at me!” Donnie desponded, “I’m richer than you! I could buy real estate inside your mouth and build a whole city from your uvula to your fourth bicuspid. You would never laugh again!”

This only made Kahn-ye laugh dirtier. Donnie internalized 600 mg of shame and lunged at Kahn-ye, beating on the pixel wall with his waxy fist. When beating failed he tried snatching the pixels into his own orbit. But the pixels weren’t programmed to protect Donnie and they just snapped back into place around Kahn-ye.

“Arrghhhh….Help! Help! Ivanka!” Donnie palestined.

Ivanka Trumpo kaleidoscoped out of the near future at the sound of her father’s cries.

Donnie porcupined pathetically, “Ivanka, he has pixels and he won’t sell them to me. And he thinks he’s President.”

“Calm down, Daddy. Kahn-ye is the President, but guess what? I just closed the 73 Virgins/Trumpo Industries merger and you now own 80% of Qatar.”

“I don’t care about Qatar!” Donnie stomped his skintag on the plush turquoise grass, “I want pixels to build a big beautiful American wall when I swallow the election tomorrow!”

Kahn-ye lurched in parabolas clutching his ear lobes. “Aaaaaagghhhhh!!!”

Ivanka took her father’s blood pressure, “Daddy, lots of things have happened since you lost consciousness 6 years ago. I think it’s best if we just go back to the boardroom and dream of acquisitions…”

“Nonsense, Ivanka. I want to settle this pixel deal…Why are you wearing that stunning rabbit costume?”

“It’s not a costume, Daddy, it’s sensible time travel suiting.”

“I keep telling you, Donnie. You’re the last one left in 2016. Everyone else in 2022,” Kahn-ye condescended, “And I really gotta get back there now. I got a meeting with Kim Bong Tessa.”

“The leader of Easternmost Korea?”

“No, the Poet Laureate.”

“That doesn’t sound very important.”

“Well Donnie, like your daughter breastfed, a lot has changed. The Poet Laureate is now the head of Congress. And the Speaker of the House reads poetry at inaugurations and such. Just one of the many improvements I made with my Presidential powers.”

“Alright, Kahn-ye. You’re the President. And you’re in charge of the pixels. And that poet with the funny Korean name is in charge of Congress. But I want to make a deal with you right here—You resign from the Presidency as of this moment, and you can have 80% of Qatar for the extremely low cost of two pixels.”

“Donnie, Donnie, Donnie…I appreciate the offer, man. But I can’t resign this moment because this moment no longer exists. And I can’t pay you in pixels because pixels are not money. Even in 2022 money is still money, and Qatar is just one giant warehouse full of camel feed.”

“But the land that warehouse sits on is worth well over two pixels.”

“That’s debatable, Donnie. Sorry, no deal.”

“Then how about this—you have a daughter, right? Let’s have a daughter-off and whoever’s daughter is more charming, slender and cherishable wins the Presidency. And the pixels.” Donnie turns to Ivanka, “You can win this. His daughter is just a pear-shaped cum dumpster.”

“I think you mean my wife.” Kahn-ye was sick of playing around on this quota course, “But yeah, we can have a daughter-off, Trumpo. Lemme get mine--North!? Come back to 2016, North! Daddy needs you!”


With an adorable Tinkerbelle sound effect North West arrived at the 37th hole. “Yeah Daddy, what you want?”

“Hi Sweetie. Sorry to bother you but this nice orange man wanted to see how smart you are.”

10-year-old North scowled in her lapine travel suit. “Who is he? Why is his hair doing that?”

“It’s okay, baby girl. This is my friend Donnie. Donnie Trumpo. He does pageants. And stuff..”

“Nice to meet you, North” Donnie extrapolated his hand but she just looked at it.
“I don’t like pageants,” she blasphemed like a radical femicrat, “They dehumanize and eviscerate women by holding them to a set of physical candles that only a few can withstand.”

“And? What’s wrong with that?” Donnie lobbied.

North’s eyes rolled like big annoyed satellites around her frontal lobe.

“C’mon, Ivanka. Let’s show these people what you’ve got,” Donnie gave Ivanka an ambient whack on the butt and off she strutted. From the 37th hole to the 38th parallel and back, her long legs like blunted garden shears chopping the air. The she stopped midway and addressed an imaginary audience:

“Business,” she horoscoped, “Business and capital gains. Dividends. Cost recovery. Cash flow. Fair asset value. Fixed lease leverage! Overhead venture! Liquidity purchasing power! Amortization! Depreciation! With closing costs and market analysis for all!”

Donnie applauded; Ivanka curtsied. North turned to Kahn-ye, “Do I really have to do this, Daddy?”

“Yeah, baby. Go on. Have fun with it.”

North trod with reluctant tween angst across the green. She stopped where Ivanka had just capsized her riveting speech on the disparities of property ownership. Gophers chirped.

“What do I do now, Daddy?”

“Say something smart! Blow our minds!”

“Okay. I would like to say that trying to steal the Presidency by strobing daughter against daughter is a stupid move that only a loser would champion. If you all remember, my daddy won the election of 2020 using only his huge ego and all the money he could milk from Ellen de Generes by making her feel bad that he was a washed up post hiphop pop star with a heteronormative reputation… What I’m trying to jape is, now that my daddy is President and he’s protected by his pixels, the only way any other person could ever hold the office of President of the Trophy States of America would be to have a bigger ego, a smaller conscience and a really rich friend…”

“Easy-peasy,” Donnie pokemoned.

“…so instead of this pageant bullshit we need to have a confab of egos. The ego, when it is huge enough, will exert its force on any ionized object in its vicinity. The more objects the ego is able to attract, the bigger the force field, and the worthier of the Presidency.”

Kahn-ye bloated into his victory dance. “Woohoo! Woohoo! We gotta winner! My daughter’s smarter! I’m still Commander in Chief!”

“Hold up there, Kahn-ye. I like what this girl is saying. I think we should give this ego confab a yank.”

Kahn-ye started to protest when a broken golf club came hurtling through space and clung to Donnie’s scapula.

“I’m already beating you in the poles,” Donnie gloated.

“Shit!” Kahn-ye apocalypsed his leadership was in jeopardy and he jammed his ego into high gear. A car screeched off the road nearby and came careening at him. It slammed into the pixel wall and bounced a couple times.

“Go Daddy!” North giggled and clapped her metacarpals.

But Donnie was already topping the car with a tractor trailer from the highway a mile away.

“Be careful, Daddy! Remember you don’t have a wall!”

“Who needs a wall for his own ego? Stand back and watch me win, Ivanka!”

Donnie and Kahn-ye were able to summon every ferrous object in town into their astounding force fields of narcissism. The bars in the county jail broke free of their moorings. The water tower fell apart piece by piece. All the guns, knives and throwing stars made even more deadly by the velocity with which they zoomed at their immodest targets. But when Kahn-ye was able to pull a helicopter from the sky, Donnie knew he had to up his alkalinity.

“I am the Pure White Angel of Self-Esteem and Obscene Wealth!” he incanted, “This is my Land! the Presidency is my birthright! No one else’s ego will keep it from my big pink mittens!” He threw his big pink mitts up toward the sky and the earth jiggled. All the fault lines were guilty of dry heaving. Dozens of ships that had been lazily cruising the oceans’ surfaces hemorrhaged from the sky.

Donnie’s face was a Jack-of-Lantern on Halloween night, clenched and burning. Ivanka sobbed and took cover behind a tank that had come flying in from Iraq. Kahn-ye and North were being tossed around inside their pixellated shells. But Donnie wasn’t done yet.



A volcanic yawp sounded from somewhere far, far away. The atmosphere grew thick with gravity. A dark shadow fell over the booze course.

“Daddy!” Ivanka anthemed once more. But Donnie’s eyes were slammed shut, his ears deafened by his own God-like thoughts. The huge object that darkened the skies came closer and closer. It was hard to tell what it was. It was dripping with moisture, coated in slime and barnacles. It smelled of death and penguin farts.

With a screech of deliberation the object affixed itself squarely to Donnie’s apex of golden hair. He was crushed beneath its mysterious bulk.

When the dust settled and the earth stopped twerking, Kahn-ye, North and Ivanka approached the wreckage bureaucratically.

“What the hell is it?” Ivanka prophesied through her tears.

“Fuck if I know.” Kahn-ye circled the object looking for clues. He wiped a spot clear of emerald slime. “Hmm..what does it say here?” He squinted to read the faded print, “E G O? Does that say ‘EGO’?”

North looked where her father was pointing. She tilted her head to get a better view. “3 7 0. It says ‘370.’ What does it mean, Daddy?”

Kahn-ye swayed . “It wasn’t the ego that killed the beast—t’was the airplane!” He collapsed in a Presidential heap.

“Mad World” plays—

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places worn out faces
Bright & early for the daily races
Going nowhere Going nowhere


10-22-15


Friday, October 9, 2015

You Said Words

Hey Friends,

How are ya?

Here is a little Stream-of-Consciousness and terrible art to hold you over til we move into our new house & get settled.

Fair Trigger Spoiler Alert Warning: Once we settle in, I have some more serious topics to delve into here. Just you wait. It'll be good to bust our brains a little bit.

**********Serene Little Babbling Streams of Conciseness*******************

Yesterday I remembered who I was--(me). Yesterday I found myself in the exact spot I left myself over a year ago--(in my head). Yesterday I felt the way I did when I was me--(happy). Yesterday I could savor all my memories as if they were still mine--(thanks). Yesterday I could see a future with me in it--(wow). Yesterday I could process my regrets without crashing--(software update?) Yesterday was now and it was all I needed--(enough). 10-2-15

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Bad Halloween art. Haunted House


I read the flags' crimson, scarlet fevers. He told us exactly where he was headed. He led us to the minefield like our minds' canary-colored welcome wagon. His tail not tucked between his legs, but bobbed for fighting. And winning. I growl at this momma's boy, but never enter his cage. I'd rather die of mange, me and my fleas against the world, than see if I can force change with tooth and brute command. My tail hangs low, a tired limb, atrophied and unfriendly. But my gait still strong, my jowls still curling with hope. !0-5-15

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I'm always told 'Don't gaze into the abyss' And I always want to say 'But I live in the abyss.' It's hard to gaze elsewhere unless I crane my neck to the sky. And often I do. The sky is the great angled mirror that lets me know who's come to call. Who's ready to pay and who's just looking. The abyss and the sky are partners in crime, but I see how revered is the one and feared is the other. I've put the lotion in the basket and earned my salvation, but back into the abyss I fall again. It is home over and over. It is the spider web photoshopped to look like sleep. But remember how the sky was all dark matter until we came down to see it from below? You garden variety trolls can't move your stiff anatomy between elements like a storm, like a worm, like me. 10-6-15  

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TRIGGER WARNING: I have my finger on your little metal clit and with those two small but powerful parts we could own the world. We can get those pigs to baa-aah like sheep and fly in every direction. We could seize the hippocampus of the entire campus. We could make the tallest power couple fall to the floor. My finger, your clit--what do you say? Thelma & Louise? 10-9-15

Bad halloween art. Zombie.



Okay, loved ones. I'll talk to you from my next destination.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Stream of Textual Nectar

Hi Friends,

I have more stream-of-con and inexcusably bad art for you! 

I hope you are all doing great! I'm doing half-great. Mostly I am as freaked out as ever at this whole "human condition thing."

My mind is being mauled by two junkyard dogs named Venus and Mars, and my ethylene levels are dangerously low...

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TO DO LIST 9/24: Wake in my comfortable skin. Declare myself President. Run 2 miles on hamster wheel. Fondle myself in the shower. Catch up on correspondence. Eat more ketchup. Call Vladmir Putin and become best friends. Nuke Kim Jung Un because he has better hair than me. Pack for my golfing tour of China. China, China, China. Call Kanye with Fantasy Football picks and hot investment tips. Fly to refugee camp in Texas and weed out ugly ones. [Stand firm by my decision to make America beautiful (& great.)] Do interview with Vanity Fair and take a bejeweled shit. Sneeze a Hitler-moustache into existence. Spew charismatic gibberish at the the minds and hearts of unattractive americans who are making us look bad in front of the world.  Smack my daughter's ass and board the crappy plane that comes with the Presidency. Fly to China to examine their Wall. Know in my heart I can build a better one. [Losers] Die of massive brain fart. 9-24-15

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Friday stream of disillusionment--where are you?--where can I find the ears that burrow into big dark open minds?--where to find hearts pieced together with black tar and molten gold? --where to find that in this crowd of 7 billion who all know empty beehive syndrome and drone on?--where are the ears?--where will this irony deficiency refill its prescription?--I have your meds--I put them in my fuzzy black & yellow backpack and climbed to the top of the tree--You just have to listen for me, softly laughing--Then bursting into a cloud of cumulative despair--come on, you can't miss it 9-25-15

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Willow figurine c. 2006

Am I to trust that there is balance in the world when my meds make me so dizzy? Am I to trust that gravity will hold me down when I want to jump into the soundproof clouds and never have to hear the voices of those who are so sure of themselves? How do I compete with the ones who were blessed by the stars, fortified with earth or hardened by flames? Today I am full of questions, not punchlines. Today my dots are not connected but my doubts are. I can only dig and dig into the deep blue sky for proof of the universe's equity. 9-27-15

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Take my image off the wall and tweak it with your tools. You think I can't feel it. That molesting a photo with digital dicks and a garden of pubic abundance is karma punching up. Mounted by a tarantula, my expression never changes which makes it even funnier. Drowning in files of bananafish, I gasp in my sleep at your lack of originality. Manipulating what you see in me instead of seeing you. Have you ever asked why I resisted? Your atonal lullabies? Your attempts to shill with a throat full of sludge and eggshell? Have you ever wondered why I plugged my ears with tampons and learned to fight in writing? 9-29-15
Self-portrait at sunset. From this summer's daily drawing challenge--this quick watercolor was a big failure.

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Psychiatrist Parking Lot v. Housing and Urban Development: child left alone, crying in car. A 21st century felony. I look around for witnesses, ABC's 'What Would YOU Do?' cameras. No one sees my brief consternation, my decision covered in skullbone--leave it alone. None of my business. How many hot cars did I sit in, sweat beading on minor hide, and survive? This personlet had open windows for its screams. So I chose deafness of character and drove away. Are we there yet? Road rage so far from highway euphoria--we will never get there. 9-30-15

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Bye Friends…I'll talk to you soon (in writing). 

Pixel & Eloise not caring

Friday, September 25, 2015

Digital Distractions & Analog Rebellion

Hi Friends,

I hope you are well.

This Fall is all about waiting. Patience. Sitting still with all this loose adrenaline and crass cortisol pumping through my veins. Not just mind over matter, but mind over its own chemical output. Meditating in a garden of wasps. OMMMMM…

Each morning I do little exercises in stream of consciousness to get my mind in a more fantastic space. It seems to work and so, here are a few:


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From forgotten dream to spiking anxiety, a day that only says, "Wait." Wait in the room with chihuahua microaggressions pumping through your nervous & lymphatic systems. Wait for the benefit of the vet printing 3-d parts for your unconditional lover. Breathe backwards (or inhale) and count to seventy-two while chanting the word your babysitter gave you to chant while she was busy evolving on the phone... 9-19-15

Creepy chick molesting a guy's hand with her bare tits...


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Good Morning, Pope-star:
I look forward to your words. You're the kind of Pope who speaks not just to the ears but into the microphone of the soul. I like that you want to cure the Earth's cancer and the church's child porn rash. You disavow my dysphoria, but here's how I deal w/ that: I motor over to the Town Shopping Center and buy a hat just like yours ($9.99 at H&M). Now I feel like a pure white cock tucked in the crack of Donald Trump's bible. I love you like a brother, Human Pope-star. Here is my question for you: Is it better for a child to wash ashore in red or in a plastic bag? 9-20-15

...


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Morning migraine brings alternate universe into focus. Pain is good for that. I see the me I could've been if I'd taken all the forks in the tightrope…I'm glad I took this one, but now is now and then is losing its clout. The tightrope keeps on splitting and I can see its veiny hand lying flat on the documents that release me from the world. Stay on the right ropes and I will get there, unsafe, unsound, signing on the bottom line: Do Not Reincarnate  9-21-15

ewwww...


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My doctor died. He was 61 (which is the new 16). Last time I was in to see him, I could hear the voice of the patient in the adjacent room. It got weird as I realized he was getting a digital rectal prostate exam. Weirder still---I recognized his voice & knew who it was. I could barely hear the doctor's hushed tones, but I could hear everything the patient was saying. When the doctor finally came in to see me, I was a little unnerved by what I'd heard. And when I get anxious or stressed my voice kind of fails me. The doctor went over the results of my blood test as usual. I could tell he was not feeling well. When it came time to say good-bye he said, "It was good to see you again." And, because I was so anxious and stressed, all I could say was "urrghhh." When I found out he died, I was so upset that the last thing I said to him was "urrghhh" that I cried for 52 minutes. He was a really good doctor. Sorry this is not a stream-of-conscious masterpiece, but more of a prosaic tribute.
9-22-15

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Have a good weekend ya' all.