new shades

I heard about the fire in DTLA a little later than I'd have liked. I was up that night and were my view not obscured from the freeway overpass that divides my neighborhood, the light from the fire would have certainly reached my window from across the river, notifying me. I often regret missing a fun photo opportunity, but the sting is especially acute when I learn that I was so close by to one, unawares, and likely very bored at the time. Due to the time that I learned of it and work constrictions I didn't get to make it to the scene until about thirty hours after the incident, at which point I was deterred by security, pigs, and FDLA at all angles. I was far too late and they were letting no one near the destruction. The best I could muster was climbing to the top of an adjacent parking garage and snapping a couple of photos, from a distance, of the two derelict stairwells that remained standing after the blaze.

Before riding my bike downtown I'd left my hotel room (SRO) in sort of a headache-y daze. I'm a notable wimp when it comes to bright light. Having accidentally crushed my sunglasses in my backpack the night before, I was forced to walk two grueling blocks in the day sun to Sun (ha) Market, a bodega run by an old Chinese couple near my place. Dusting off a very stylish pair of shades from a neglected rack near their front counter ($4.00!!), I felt satisfied with my purchase as I left. Immediately as I exited the market, a few feet to my right a prostitute who I see around sometimes hollered some unintelligible gobbledegook at her pimp or john or maybe a random stranger. He responded with a hard backhand across her mouth. The hysterics temporarily abated as I passed, and on my way to retrieve my bicycle I found myself pondering the levels of abuse people will tolerate in their own lives. Not just on the receiving end, but the willingness to participate in the exchange of abuses as well. Surely it must damage the psyche or the soul to just hit a woman on the street in broad daylight. I can't imagine what would incense me enough to make that leap. Only now though, a few days after witnessing those people in front of the market am I feeling sorry for them. I've read that lack of immediate compassion for others is a sign of depression, but I dunno, I don't feel sad. Maybe I'm just worn down, unsure what matters anymore. I bet they were arguing about money.

Anyway. My new shades look great.

i wrote a poem for you wanna hear it

EXCERPTED FROM THE NEW YORK POST

THEY TOOK HIS BRAIN

and used it for what one would think,
the obvious science experiments
and what have you (doctors do)

and used it for the great good of
neurological study, unquestionable moral
keystones - well there was still
exploration of the personal psyche,
an act of course, of course,
that is at unsteady moral altitude
for what third party should read you?

THEY TOOK HIS BRAIN

they used it to clean up the kitchen

for the brain is man’s most natural,

a sopping sponge of all things,

and being in the kitchen already

it was then fried in a pan

and with a wavering laugh

a nervous hand took it up
and took to shaking (jitters!
so soft to tacit touch!) and now
to take a funny lick!

if just to say we did it
yuk yuk yuk

THEY TOOK HIS BRAIN
and passed it around and around
all oohs and ahhs, all gees and gaws
enthusiastic and possessive

they began pinning awards to it
(first place! the best brain ever!)
but sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin

was was it was what it was,
it was pride, and with that
they paraded around town
an illicit display of dominance

(you know, how “they” like to do)
eesh

THEY TOOK HIS BRAIN
and fondled it mischievously

painted it to appear disembodied

(no shit right?) like an ultimate sex organ

or a work of conceptual art

totally unsatisfying, obviously

the whole experience, ruined

‘cause you can’t have his
and then go and make it yours
once you’ve snipped away
with every god damned wire

so say it out loud with me
“dead. is. dead.”

ain’t it true?

THEY TOOK HIS BRAIN

who, him?
no, no the vacant
mule on the slab

oh, him?

oh gosh come off it

punt it across the field
someday everyone dines
with the devil’s prized pigs

i put my photos in a shoebox under the bed, when i woke up they were timberlands

I've been slowly filtering in a handful of new photos onto my photoblog, hahaclark.tumblr.com. Considering my low funds and current access/use of only a single toy camera with a 22mm lens, I feel that my progress documenting Los Angeles has been a minor success (mostly in that I haven't given up on this money pit of a hobby).  

nsfw

pic msg from luci
she's gonna be in a magazine


doesn't the "not safe for work" acronym kind of pull the curtain away from the wizard? that is to say if people were doing their jobs instead of dicking off on the computer, would we need this acronym in the first place?

not that anyone should have to work so much.

i'm just sayin.

DEATH TOKEN

I work here now and I write these things for work...

Jonestown (Guyana Punch Line)

James "Jim" Warren Jones, apostlistic leader of The People's Temple, led hundreds of his followers to Guyana in 1977, settling into an agricultural commune dubbed "Jonestown." Beneath a banner blown by a combination of evangelism and  Marxism, his Temple's foreign sanctuary purportedly offered an alternative life to an unjust and unequal United States. The dream of a socialist paradise quickly collapsed however, as Jonestown was not self sustainable. Numerous members defected and a martial law was imposed. Jim Jones long and somehow widely overlooked descent into madness culminated over the next year. Once articulate sermons became convoluted, paranoid, and megalomaniacal rants, slurred due to the effects of rampante amphetamine use.  After rumors of torturous punishments inflicted on colonists for insubordination, the settlement's inability to provide for its inhabitants, and the discovery of the mutilated body of a Temple member who had discussed leaving, Congressman Leo Ryan paid a visit to Jonestown in November of 1978 with the vocal intention of investigating the alleged human rights violations taking place there.

While initially met with warmth and enthusiasm, Ryan's visit would be an unfortunate catalyst setting into motion the mass suicide/murder of over nine-hundred people. Despite rehearsals for the congressman's visit, the unrest at Jonestown as apparent. Over a short number of days the extradition of a small handful of temple members who had expressed a desire to leave had been arranged. Initially it seemed their wish would be granted, however upon their arrival at the Port Kaituma airstrip outside of Jonestown they were met by armed Temple militia who opened fire. Five members of the leaving party were killed, including Leo Ryan who was shot over twenty times. It was following this event that Jim Jones decided to implement his final course of action, another ceremoniously rehearsed act. Delivering a final sermon in the compound's central pavilion, Jonestown residents were convinced to imbibe en masse in a cocktail consisting of  Flavor Aid, Valium, chloral hydrate, cyanide, and Phenergan. Jones, who later joined his procession with a self inflicted bullet to the head, cited this final undertaking as a protest and "revolutionary suicide," though it is more widely regarded as the largest mass murder of American lives until the World Trade Center attacks of September 11th, 2001. More than three-hundred of the deaths were of children.

"Drinking the Kool Aid" remains a figure of speech pertaining to blind, sustained belief systems. Jokes in reference to it persist in popular culture to this date.

"What you need to believe in is what you can see ... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father ... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."
-James Warren Jones

The Branch Davidian Massacre

The Branch Davidian schism began in 1955 as an offshoot of the Protestant Christian, Davidian Seventh Day Adventist Church. Their views were decidedly apocalyptic, believing themselves to be living in the end times nearing the resurrection of Christ. Barring a few public outcries declaring armageddon's encroachment, the group remained largely unnoticed, secluding themselves in a compound east of Waco, TX, dubbed Mount Carmel Center after the biblically significant mountain in Israel. Among the Davidians however, a complicated power struggle had begun unfolding following an unrealized doomsday prediction and the death of their primary organizer, Benjamin Roden. Groomed to reprieve the role of church leader, Vernon Howell (who would later change his name to David Koresh) battled with Roden's son George for a number of years over dominance within their small and strange community. These battles included bizarre incidents of public slander, corpse abuse and murder. The feud was put to rest in 1989 with Howell assuming leadership after George Roden put an ax through the head of a fellow Davidian, resulting in his commitment to a mental asylum.

Howell worked rapidly in his now unchallenged role of messiah to his people. Releasing a tape entitled "New Light," he claimed that God had instructed him to gather as many women as possible to procreate with him, while other male members of their order should vow celibacy. Further instructions under God's word found the Davidians stockpiling weapons for an impending end of days scenario. By 1993 Howell (now Koresh) and his church had picked up the attentions of  both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), as well as the local media. The former for suspected possession of illegal firearms, and the latter due to rumors of statutory rape and child abuse within the compound. The Waco Tribune-Herald published a report.

"If you are a Branch Davidian, Christ lives on a threadbare piece of land 10 miles east of here called Mount Carmel. He has dimples, claims a ninth-grade education, married his legal wife when she was 14, enjoys a beer now and then, plays a mean guitar, reportedly packs a 9mm Glock and keeps an arsenal of military assault rifles, and willingly admits that he is a sinner without equal." -- Opening passage of "The Sinful Messiah," Waco Tribune-Herald, 02/27/93

The morning following the piece on Koresh and his flock, the ATF commenced a follow up to a warrant for the alleged unauthorized firearms, attempting to raid the compound. Two hours of exchanging gunfire immediately ensued, though both sides claim that the opposite took the first shot. The immediate result was the wounding of Koresh and the loss of a number of ATF agents. Subsequently the FBI and Texas Army National Guard were called in to assist with the proceedings. Led by Richard Rogers, an FBI operative with a poor history of "playing army," a haphazard fifty-one day siege took place at Mount Carmel Center. On April 19th, 1993, the final push to extract the Davidians occurred with catastrophic results. After sustaining teargas and multiple hails of gunfire, the church was set ablaze from within. 

Of the seventy-six Davidian casualties in the attack, autopsy findings uncovered multiple causes of death including including gunshot wounds, exposure to flame and smoke inhalation, stabbings (supposed suicides), and crushed skulls by falling bricks as the building ultimately collapsed in on itself. Among them was David Koresh, slain in an armageddon that was in a way of his own design.

Maher Shalal Hash Baz

Tori Kudo in repose via Samsung Android

I had the opportunity to meet Tori Kudo the other day. 

 Maher Shalal Hash Baz means "hurry to the spoils."

LOOKS GOOD ON PAPER

This piece was originally written for Bring Your Own Stories, a monthly live storytelling event in New Orleans very similar to The Moth Radio Hour. Seven to ten stories are told in an evening back to back. After a short reprieve, judges in the audience vote on their favorite story of the evening and it is aired on the local NPR station the following week. Through my teens and early twenties I found it very natural to speak or perform before crowds, but in recent years it has become slightly more difficult for some reason. Maybe it's because I don't really drink like I used to. Anyhow, putting this somewhat personal story together for the Bring Your Own Stories event, telling it to a crowd of people who had never met me, was an exercise in attempting to find that comfortable space again. The theme for the night which I preformed at was "heroes." The story I told covers about twenty years of the relationship I had with my first, and for many years only friend, Joseph. It ended up the winning story of the evening and was aired on WWNO in the Spring of 2013. It is a true story.

Joseph in 2001

LOOKS GOOD ON PAPER

I made my first friend in California in 1989.  I was six. I was playing in the front yard of my folk’s place when another kid approached the end of the lawn. He says to me, “Hi, I’m Joey. Want to be friends?”

I’ve always really enjoyed reflecting on this memory. We lose our innocence pretty fast and after a certain point relationships become more complicated to carve out, but at this time he was a kid and I was a kid and that’s all that really mattered. He liked GI Joe and I preferred the world of Lego toys, but whatever. Right off the bat, we were virtually inseparable.

How Joey came to my folk’s front lawn that day is unknown to me. He lived in a dilapidated farmhouse on the outskirts of town, nowhere near the cul de sac I was growing up in. On weekends I’d be allowed to ride my bike out there though, where we pretty much had the run of the place. Aside from he and I, it was just his little sister and his mom, neither of whom paid much interest in what we did. We spent years of uninterrupted weekends and summers there. It was the place where we laid the foundation for our entire boyhood fantasy world, but as a childhood locale this place had its serious pitfalls as well. While a dilapidated house on the outskirts of town may be stupendous for the fostering of two boys’ imaginations, but it also facilitated a shroud of privacy for any adult on the property. The freedom was equal to people of all ages, and so simultaneously while Joey and I were devouring Marvel Comics and fusing Ninja Turtle heads to Barbie torsos, his mother was deeply applying herself in the world of drugs.

When you’re little kid you don’t truly know “bad” yet. It’s hard to recognize bad when adults propagate it. It’s hard to understand why bad is done. And even if you do recognize and understand bad, it’s another challenge entirely to counteract it. In Joey’s house I was starting to understand bad, but I thought at the time that if I told anyone then I would be punished by association. It was an early lesson that a problem left a problem is allowed to grow, and these problems were growing along with us.

By the time we were close to spitting distance from our teens, food had become scarce in Joey’s home. I’d bring some sometimes, sneaking it from my parent’s house as not to raise any questions. We’d couch dive for change, and when the spoils were good we’d make the trek down the highway to the gas station for garbage food- Charleston Chews, beef jerky, Jolt; but sometimes there’d just be needles, used, uncapped. Sometimes there’d be strange men sleeping there. They’d wake up as we wandered through, offer us beer and cigarettes and give us bad times for being virgins, even though we were only twelve or so. A permanent fog collected in the place and consistently it smelled like burnt plastic. The TV was always on; something like COPS or Springer or just plain static. There were stacks of porn on VHS in the living room. Almost exclusively biker gangbang stuff in big awkward cardboard cases. Nothing to play them on though. The rug was sticky in spots, there was a hole in front of the toilet that your feet dangled into when you sat down, threatening to swallow you. Details stack upon details within this story and they all and more atrocious ash to the tray, but I’ll spare it. Unsurprisingly, eventually, it all came to a head.

Joey’s dad showed up one night. He was in a powder blue van, the words "US MARINE CORP VETERAN" painted on the side. Nobody was ever clear with me why he was away and honestly I’m not sure anyone was ever clear with Joey either. He believed a convoluted story of military service and duty, but I quickly gleaned that it wasn’t true, or if it was his service was a distant memory. I’m pretty certain that he’d been serving time. In any case, to celebrate his return there was a big party. My memory of this night is hazy at my age now, and also possibly because I’d been drinking these strawberry daiquiris that Joey’s mom had been making for us with Coors Light instead of hard alcohol because they were “for the kids,” but sometime late, around my fourth of fifth sweet-mud tasting beverage there was a huge, huge fight. A man had been caught creeping into the room of Joey’s sleeping younger sister. The place exploded!

Joey’s dad dragged the guy into the dirt driveway and beat him within an inch of his life with what I think was a pipe. This hard justice came at the cost of most of one of his ears though, which was bitten off. The cops came and arrested Joey’s mom for a whole mess of charges. We poured over the peeling linoleum in the kitchen to find the mangled bits of severed ear, picking them up with party napkins which were all over printed with Sesame Street characters, putting them in the freezer. The ear couldn’t be saved though. I’m not sure why we, as kids, weren’t taken out of there, why my parents weren’t contacted, or why his dad didn’t go with his mom. I genuinely don’t remember. It just seemed like everyone was just suddenly gone and Joey and I were falling asleep on the living room floor like always, talking about cartoons and flipping the channels between QVC and scrambled porn. I do remember that by the end of the month though, Joey his sister moved to Florida from where their father had come.

I didn’t see my friend again for years. We kept up with letters and occasional phone calls, but the latter was expensive via our landlines, and the gaps in our communication slowly became greater. Finally though, just after I turned 18 he got ahold of me telling me that he was coming back to the West Coast. Great!

By the time he arrived I had moved. I’d gotten out of my hometown and found my first apartment in San Francisco. I’d picked up some tight pants, gotten a chest tattoo and a gig at a record store. I was desperately trying to be cool. Joey, who preferred Joe now, was crashing with an aunt in the North Bay, but he was going to visit me whenever he could, and he did. It was weird though.

Things hadn’t gone much differently with his father in Florida. Turned out his dad was a brutal alcoholic living off of some kind of government stipend for taking custody of the kids. He physically was abusive, and despite Joe’s best efforts to convey otherwise, he was clearly damaged by it. He’d turned to drugs which at first didn’t frighten me as I’d taken to experimenting with a good amount of them too, but I quickly realized that his use was bit higher stakes than my casual curiosity. While fundamentally I’ve got no real problem with a healthy (“healthy”) term of drug bingeing in anyone’s life, being of sound mind is a big help in dealing with any perception altering device. At this time the shit coming out of his mouth was a fucking mess.

He talked constantly of two things then. Sex (very specifically a foot fetish that he’d picked up, an unrelatable concept for me) and the so-called “third eye.” He was understandably really caught up in the idea of transcendence of reality, leaving behind a world of pain and misery for some sort of zen/sky/lotus understanding of all things, which I could totally empathize with considering how shitty his life had been at that point. Clearly though he lacked the confidence or strength to slow his intake and bring these thoughts to any logical conclusion.

I lived in a number of apartments in SF, moving just about every year. For the first handful of those years Joe, for a least some period of time, would be a fixture on my couch. I lucked out and had a series of great roommates who put up with this, but it fast became a problem for me. He rarely had money and he didn’t work during his visits, so I was providing just about everything for him. Also, the drugs that he somehow managed to get were really taking significant toll on his mind. Coupled with his childhood demons he was losing his grip. You couldn’t get a word in edgewise without him bringing up zen or feet. He was constantly rambling, unbelievably lost. It was awful.

I wanted to help. I wanted to help. However, I had neither the money nor the faculties to do so, and finally, when I found out that he’d been making bizarre phone calls to my mother while I was at work, leaving long messages of pseudo spiritual and sexual psychobabble, that was it. I wasn’t harsh, but I was final. I told him he needed help which I could not provide. He told me he loved me and politely left later that day. I never saw nor heard from him again. Years later a mutual childhood acquaintance of ours called me to ask if I’d had any contact with him recently. When I told them that I had not they informed me that they’d seen him passed out in the parking lot of our hometown’s Payless Superstore. It looked like he had shit his pants. “A big yellowish, brownish streak that went all the way from his ass to one ankle.” That was it. No other information and as far as I know nobody helped him.

When Joey and I were real little kids we pretended to be superheroes a lot. Once we were hanging out at the elementary school we attended after hours. There was this other kid named Vincent who I had class with there as well. He was whizzing around, rollerblading on these new Bauer rollerblades he’d got for his birthday, which were a big deal to nine-year-olds in nineteen-ninety-whatever. As he was goofing off, I think maybe trying to impress us, all of the sudden he lost control and fell forward into the side of one of the classrooms. He put his hands out to stop himself, but instead of landing them on the stone part of the wall, his arms punched right through a window at about chest level. Immediately pulling them out, he paused, then started screaming as blood begins pouring out of him like two cracked hoses. He’d lacerated himself all the way from his wrists to his shoulders.

I had no idea what to do, but within seconds Joey was over there. He took off his shirt and stood on one end of it, ripping it into strips and immediately demanded I do the same. It turned out that a recent PSA at the end of an episode of GI Joe he’d watched had taught him how to tie a tourniquet. I had never seen so much blood in my entire life and probably haven’t since. I felt otherworldly, but Joey was so calm the whole time. Vincent passed out and I helped hold the bandages while Joey ran off all crazy bloody, throwing himself before the first car he saw and getting the driver, who I later learned first tried to drive around this screaming child rather than stop, to call 911 from his car phone. If Joey hadn’t been there I’m totally certain that Vincent would have died.

About a week later some cops and firemen came to our classroom.  They pulled Joey up to the front of the class and presented him with an award, a certificate. You could tell he was really embarrassed, but also really proud. It was a pale blue piece of paper and in big black letters trimmed with gold it said “HERO for actions above and beyond the call of duty.” There was also a twenty dollar certificate to Baskin Robbins 31 flavors, which he shared with me.

A lot of people saw a lot of things in my friend over the years; a burden, a battered child, a deviant, an addict, a nuisance, a pervert and a very sick man, and on and on and on. I knew him for a long time though. Long before most of those titles but for the first, which was how his parents treated him. In that time, even through the worst of the bullshit near the end of our friendship, he always displayed that deep down he really, really wanted to be the good guy. When we played he was the noble character, who conquered the villain, transcended the drama, and fell to the feet of the fair lady he'd rescued to delicately kiss them- not too wet, not too dry, no tickling. Just kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, again and again and again.

some screenshots that i took on my computer of cell phone photos of my drawings + captions explaining stuff if you wanted to know

ketchup & creole mustard on overdue obamacare bill w/ japanese toy. right out the gate this isn't even a drawing, really

drawn on acid, not much better than my sober drawings. the flag on top of the castle says "sucks." the shadowy guys are saying "that is what they wear on their feet" in reference to whatever the thing welcoming them to the sucky nope-castle is.

i have drawn tons of these "rogues gallery" matchbook covers and lost almost all of them. ICE PICK was always my favorite. runners up include BOSS DRAMA, MEAN MR. MOON, BOBBY THE BERRY and probably others. i plan on making a lil zine of em someday, but then again i plan on a lot of things

self portrait from hella years ago that i liked so much at this point that i got too scared to finish. that was my actual haircut at the time.

some close ups for a poster i did for the new orleans now wave band CURVED DOG: http://curveddog.bandcamp.com/ you should totally check em out because they rule. he's running to the mega-mall parking lot saying "NO WAVES!! GET IT?!" Some fun details: his dumb back tattoo is the same as henry rollin's  dumb back tattoo. also the way i drew his feet is a total Don Martin rip

flier for a NOLA punk show, where the blue dog + crass + the sex pistols font are funny things to have on a flier together. idk if the joke translates elsewhere. weird coincidence: George Rodrigue died the day that i drew this flier. the thing on the right is saying "i'm crying, i'm dying." abe lincoln has a gonzo nose.

some mock ups for shirts that my homie and i were gonna make and then never did b/c i moved across the country. HANKS is a bodega in NOLA that punk kids and cracky kinda folks get wasted in the parking lot of and watch the sunrise. can you see that the praying hands are smashing a cockroach? the one on the left says "when it rains it pails" which is a thing i wrote in one of my notebooks while on acid like it was gonna mean something to me later or something. yah rite.

SUPPORT OUR STOOPS drawing for my buddy Clayton. he wanted me to draw something commemorating the stoop that he has been getting drunk on almost every night for the past few years and this is what i came up with. i hate how i spaced out the letters but whatever. 

i had the idea to make this "ad" when i was stoned, so i did. options include: asses/butts, giant sweaty cock that smells, dog privates, muffins, toad choad, witchtit, hairy balls, just popsicle, & ANYTHING

i wanted to draw the raiders guy and a man with a weird swastika body and also california. this is what happened.

bar napkin doodles. i should note that although i really like to draw swastikas, and although i own a bunch of crazy offensive porn, it's not cuz i'm facist or racist or have contempt for women or anything. it's more like i just have no hope for humanity. i'd like the world to be a better place, but it's not. 

there is something to this idea at the top: a cyclops unable to find a mate, then driven mad by its own inability to blink. i haven't thought about it much harder than that though. anyway, this is the last page of an old notebook. the skull drawing is a blind contour thing.

there is something to this idea at the top: a cyclops unable to find a mate, then driven mad by its own inability to blink. i haven't thought about it much harder than that though. anyway, this is the last page of an old notebook. the skull drawing is a blind contour thing.

CONTEXT BOOKEND

I remember reading a Calvin and Hobbes anthology some years ago; the ten year anniversary book which included commentary by Watterson beneath each individual strip. He writes of the first ever Calvin and Hobbes comic in which Calvin "catches" Hobbes in a snare with a tuna fish sandwich, he then felt it was important to establish an introduction to the duo, only later realizing that it was an unimportant detail. There was no need to establish a context for their meeting. They just were and always would be, though at one time the odd need to create a "beginning" was there.

Similarly, though I have only the mildest of aspirations for this blog, I feel a comparable pull. I've tried numerous times since my teens to create some kind of public journal, but my own hangups on the look and feel of it, the 20/20 feeling-like-a-fucking-dork-in-rereading-my-own-shit hindsight, and my lack of discipline to acquire the funds to regularly access proper scanning and photo processing equipment needed for transporting my physical works into the digital world, has caused me to delete all traces of previous attempts. In an effort to get going at another try though, I present an excerpted (previously private) section of a journal entry of mine from last year that still seems relevant to my generally anxious disposition. Think of it as the chorus setting the scene. I just received ten rolls of film back from the processor. Listening to bulletins about how shitty the world is on NPR, peering up from my work at the minutiae covering my walls. This collection of nearly three hundred photographs taken over the last three months seems to reveal some kind of manic impossibility within my process. It lacks practicality. A photograph of an unconscious man dying of alcoholism in a Rite-Aid parking lot seems as common a vision as a splendorous meadow, only similar in that they’ll both be outta here soon. I have no idea what to focus on. I’m not sure I needed an all-American road trip and back to tell me that though. It’s always supposed to be some bohemian, transcendental journey, but it’s really just people in a van dividing up gas prices and talking about climate change or how well the weed is hid.

Document the world from its mundane butt-picking-in-the-milk-aisle mediocrity to its warring, sexual and romantic cacophony. Wallpaper the room so maybe people will look at it all and think “fuck, wow.” ...Or maybe I should just redecorate. I’ll set up a desk facing the door (step one: get a desk), tear down all the current decorations and replace them with silver gelatin prints of Yosemite, a stack of dated New Yorker Magazines at my side, full of long past news of no more consequence. Why do I want to overwhelm anyone anyhow? Are they gonna fix anything for me? Am I just trying to meditate? I’ll keep the radio off, the wifi absent, close my eyes and move the dying man with his bleeding liver from the parking lot to a meadow, arms across his chest. Maybe it’s better this way. Lay the fantasy to rest. Arthurian. With something resembling ambition I'm determined to keep this one going for a while. I'll pretend to ignore my mistakes, make due with shitty cell phone photos of my drawings, finally dust off the old writing whose word doc titles make me cringe at the prospect of opening, and hopefully build a compendium from the things I spend my life working on. Who really cares if it's a landfill? Is anyone even reading? It will come shakily and heavily prefaced and it won't matter. If you care, stay tuned, even though you could have probably skipped this post. Sorry. Spoiler alert.