"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"

nothingyet

the time of day is everything to me (kick up your feet).

the world of wood as idea/representation, in a bird's mind's eye.
cuckoo.

sounds like a plan

in an event that can only be described as "classic beach" we arrived at Ocean 17 around 9:30 for the Cardinal Skateboard shop's first video premiere.


Chaplain and his mom were there and green wristbands were given out to drink free keg beer, as the punk rock music blared on, in a hopping and swinging joint, full of mesh hats and hurley gear.

"all the usual suspects" were there, as Chaplain's dad said, upon entering the establishment.



i think dave and kristin had a good time, at least (after my strongly suggesting their attendance) i hope they did.

bless him o' Lord.

Dude, last night was totally fucked! i dreamt (nightmared) that one of my best mates was dead! i had this vivid picture of receiving a text from my dad that "Rory has died." i should have known immediately that it was all a horrible, awful, no good nightmare, given that my dad doesn't even have a cell phone, but alas, dreams are not reasonable creatures. i woke up and, clearly, only somewhat in my right mind, checked the internet and saw his myspace profile to make my heart sing of joy. please be careful, Rory, please be careful. i apologize for having such hidden, subconsciously morbid thoughts..

here's to the holidays

Heavenly thoughts;- everafter, paradise, wispy clouds, pearly white gates, forgiveness, father, ecstacy, bliss, nirvana, sky, God, transcendance, soul, sunrise, sunset

I saw a show on popular television last night assessing different ideas of Heaven and the afterlife. Many conflicting and controversial beliefs brought me back to thinking about things I haven’t thought much about in a long time. Is there rebirth or eternal life? Who goes to hell? How do you accept Jesus Christ as your savior and let him into your heart? When people report of near death experiences, was it truly heaven’s “white light” they saw or just the brain’s chemical reaction to a lack of oxygen; the brain’s beginning reaction to shutting down for good? I don’t think we’ll ever really know these things with absolute certainty, but faith is all that’s really important in these kind of debates anyway. You can’t really shake faith, it’s the last to die, and many don't ever experience it until they have to or they're made to.
The December solstice – the moment when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator – comes at 1:35 p.m. today, marking the start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Does this have anything to do with heaven? I don’t know. wishful winter.

Fortunes

Last night i went to a independent movie premiere, at the Naro theater in Norfolk. Directed by a good friend of a friend, Parker Cross, the movie, Fortunes, was a funny comedy about three friends questioning both fate and themselves after impulsively visiting a fortune teller. i thought it was pretty damn funny, after going into it without preconceived notions. i would recommend it to anyone.



Then an after party was held at Zio's restaurant, which was a fun reception.















Bobby P, proudly displaying his latest acquistion.













Richard was there, his wife is pregnant with twins. He is currently in med school, so as you can imagine, he is busy.














Rachel likes to wear this hat to bed.

hmmm

i love the new yorker

DH Lawrence, a favorite author of mine, was featured in an article in the New Yorker, referring to a new book about his life, "DH Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider" by John Worthen. In summation i offer this, as copied from the article...

Dying of tuberculosis in the winter of 1929-30, unable to walk, and rendered sexually impotent by his disease, he wrote these words on the last page of his last book:

"Man wants his physical fulfilment first and foremost, since now, once and once only, he is in the flesh and potent. For man, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. . . . The dead may look after the afterwards. But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours, and ours alone, and ours only for a time. We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos..."

DH Lawrence died on March 2, 1930, aged forty-four and weighing all of eighty-five pounds, in Vence, where Frieda (his wife), Aldous and Maria Huxley, and some others buried him, Frieda wrote, “very simply, like a bird".

...No doubt his vitalism was a sick man’s dream of health, and the sickness sometimes corrupts the dream with misanthropy, misogyny, and self-despair. But it would take a robust human animal indeed not to suspect, reading Lawrence, the unused possibility of a quicker, deeper life just beneath the one we live, and not to feel, reading about the man, that he sometimes knew whereof he spoke.

norfolk weeknight

10001

i want to go back to new york city. i miss it. i've said, "i hate it" but i didn't mean it. i take it back. i've only seen about a third of it (if that much).
it seems to keep people so occupied. it's romantic, dirty and cold. i think its an overall feeling that attracts me to the city; "indifferent" comes to mind, but that hardly sounds attractive(?) ;creative, chance, inspiring, possibility, people, worlds, sidewalks, construction, changing, capricious, unstuck... i think of it as the ultimate "place to visit" for me. i mean, i could never live there (for my own neurotic tendencies) but more and more i long to visit regularly, especially in the colder part of the year. so many things happen there, and so much has already happened there, all contributing to the majestic ineffability of it all. i can see the lights now, in my minds eye, the smoke of sewers, and yellow cabs, tall buildings and and rear view mirrors.
new york, new york, what makes you so special, really?

edit me

i used to write about times. it never worked. i thought it would help me remember. i still forget. things you try the hardest to forget stand clear in your mind while the events most important become far, removed, or grossly fantastical. a great time is hard to re-create. probably because its already gone. living in the moment, you sure are good and well. the bad memories i have dont last. maybe i dont let them, maybe they dont let me (maybe, i'm just lucky enough not to have too many).
often i wonder about nightmares and significance, coincidence and consequence. i'm pretty boring, in that i take most things as they are--when they're really good or really bad, that's when i attribute responsibility or blame. in this fashion, i imagine many people are the same.













there's a reasonable responsibility in not taking things too seriously.
there's conservatism in liberalism too.
luck is not at all involved.
i trust my instinct though it's failed me before (a moment of naivete, on a bus, in a city 7 miles wide, comes to mind).
we make assumptions all too often though, limiting us in many many ways. it becomes harder to look within. i don't konw many people willing to being again. that's a good way to end.
fornow .

sktbrding.

so the weekend went well-- temp got lots of good footage, and angelo proved he was a man; tyler proved he was a legend and well, all i did was slam. it was cold as shit on the day we actually got to skate and warm for our ride back to Norfolk (bummer). i always liked skating with a goal in mind, and i may have a new one, with a tentative release date for summer 06. skateboarding with some hearts made me realize just how fun it can be, i only wish i was up for the weather and the program on hand this weekend past. all in all, it was well spent, pain and all.