"Year of Dog enters with a bang"

Capricious-as characterized by or subject to whim; impulsive and unpredictable. ideologially submissive to raw emotion; characteristic, holistic, mirrored images, heldhostage; hijacked; put to gunpoint; is it doughnut or donut? (will anyone ever really know now?) silly minds; you silly minds, wrapped up in plastic, bendable cardboard; slapped. you think i'm joking?/ this is how i feel about things-playing around?/ no; not really. minds are like parasites, no... parachutes.. "best used when opened". i am like a snail crawling, slow, but making tracks even though (melodramatic nonetheless). i keep twirling the ideas around in my mind; pretzel-like; wrapped up. does any of this make any sense anyway. it okay to say no. this is just life. these are just our times. think about it twice. this is just your life. these are just our times. nothing more than just memories mixed amongst lies. no, there is much, much more to it than that, we know that much for sure. shotgun; ragtime band; new york city; ramble on rose; steady climate sailor; best of you; epitaph; flaws; design? fine. perfection./. i'm just some thought, left out, alone, in the wide open sky, happy...wondering why?

i got rip roaring drunk at the taphouse tonight.
excuse me while i pardon myself from this event,
good night.

ACL

Last night was fucking amazing! a short setlist (delivered through a television set) the most inspired music i've seen or heard in weeks, months! Ryan Adams is the best singer/songwriter of our time and he displayed that perfectly last night on Austin City Limits. The only problem was the short setlist, which i guess is to be expected since it is tv. When he played hte NORVA last June i thnk he played for like three hours.
last nights tunes...

1. a kiss before i go
2. let it ride
3. now that you're gone
4. games
5. call me on your way back home
6. hard way to fall
7. cold roses

simply amazing.

the smell of wood.

and so it goes,,, a week without a word. rip van winkle himself awoke from his slumber to inquire of my condition. well, everything is fine. as fine as it gets over here in the winterland, usa (the part where you really feel the season).


(theres always home..)





i actually went skating today, in the late afternoon afterwork, at the last minute. more and more when i skate i feel old. not to the effect that "i'm too old" to be doing such an activity, but more so in the bones. after about an hour or so of nonstop movement i rested for a few minutes, to feel my knee throbbing in the 40 degree temperatures. ouch. i got up and kicked it around for about another half an hour (only to land a switch front board and learn weak frontside 5.0s on mini ramps) and called it an evening. looking forward to warmer days. they say this weekend Norfolk will be 60 degrees!? that's Virginia for you, "there's no way to predict this kind of weather."

"Rosebud"

This morning i woke up unsettled and feeling kind of sick, coughing and out of sorts (most likely due to the recent flux in weather patterns around here). i thought about how i wanted to call in sick (i decided not to though). next i thought about some thinking i was doing while sleeping. i remember runnning from a strange voice moaning from a pile of gravel in the dark of night...
let me start at the beginning though, since it's not that long of a story, and the details are interesting...

I was starting to see a lot of peculiar graffiti around town, in alleys and on billboards. the main tagline on each piece was "rosebud" next to a nicely painted, usually colorful graffiti piece, exhibiting great "can control" by the artist. fast forward in the dream...somehow, i found out that Templeton and Kellie were a team, and they had been painting these mostly small (but sometimes huge) elaborate murals and pieces all around Norfolk. one late night they took me out to an alley near Granby St. to show me their latest effort, a huge 11 foot tall yellowish colored mural with a red rectangle, resembling a window, painted in the upper left corner. in the middle of the piece purposefully painted carelessly, was the word, "sensation" in big lettering. Kellie was explaining the process of the painting and the "team" of Kellie and Temp in the third person (which i thought was weird, but awesome). as we walked across a deserted gravel parking lot, i asked questions and explanations were given. then all of a sudden we were alerted, by a moan of (presumably) a homeless man. we were all scared nevertheless, because it was around 3am and pitchblackness all around. we darted off into the unknown, scared to death, runnning. the last thing i remember was that we were running for our lives from an unknown threat to an unknown place. then i woke up and forgot about it all until now.
nice dream.

what a weekend it 'twas

eegads!!

Reebok to release Basquiat shoe!?

cool? i guess.

into the great wide open

mountains and streams,
clouds and skies;
porches of dreams...

closer to heaven up here.

nighttime light,
stars above it,
the love below,
miles from home;
never alone.

the courage to create

i have had thoughts on creation lately, more specifically what happened to my own spirit of creation? how the time does fly when i go without it. i used to feel the creative impulse, compelled to experiment with ideas and objects of expression, though, lately i have been more introspective and less inclined to show any signs of artistic invention. i have always been interested in what goes on in the mind that pushes one to be creative, and the indisputable benefit that madness, adversity and suffering seem to play in one's creative pursuits (as evidenced by the countless achievements of artistic merit, of tormented souls).
a few years back i read a book by Rollo May, entitled, The Courage to Create, that i found immensely interesting. i recall something about the "encounter" of the creative process, and the "intensity of the encounter" and how this effects each creative process. of course, the unconscious plays a big role in much of this as well. i myself, probably depend a little too much on the unconscious aspects of the creative process, frequently lacking focus, insight or direction in anything i have ever created. there are times when i feel ideas blossoming, theories abounding, and a seemingly strong direction but mostly these are all just ideas not seen to fruition. i frequently lose touch with the structured aspects of my imagination as soon as i start a project.
when the time is right, the time is right, but so many times i make myself create something to satisfy an inner desire to do so. there is much to be said for all of this, mainly that, at the times of my most successful pieces of art, i had no real intention, just a feeling. when i forcefully produce pieces, things come out 50/50; that is to say, that sometimes it is satisfactory to me, and sometimes it is not. i do believe, that sometimes, we must make ourselves creative, (as a release, perhaps) but that the best results come from the unguided, uncontrollable urges to let something free, put something out there.
spontaneity counts for a lot, as does discipline. i like to have many different notepads, and pens around for that (a spontaneous idea that may come). it is discipline that i need to work on (perhaps in the coming year, as an undefined resolution). as i read more and more, i realize that i would like to devote as much time to creative pursuits, ultimately finding a balance between the two-reading and creating. too much of either strikes me as incomplete. i feel like i have to do them both to achieve a distinct harmony of mind. . .

"a distinct harmony of mind?!" well, enough over-intellectualizing my life here!
good day.

just like everybody else

i scrawl my name on a brown paper bag, and cough.
i think i'm getting sick (just like everybody else).

i check the internet to see only one miner survived.
sadness once again, as so often, in todays news.

i brush my teeth and check my hair.
i need a haircut.

i have all the opportunity.
off to work again i go.

should i complain or should i go?

rainspotting

;in the event of rain, stay indoors. out for quick skate, but then more indoors. study the lines on her face.
quality time in front of a machine. write seldomly. dream a little dream. read. watch movies and dvd tv.
make love in time of war. swimming pools in january. anchor yourself at home. rest up for another day.
and the book says "we may be through with the past but the past ain't through with us"