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  • Photograpy Exitement and Blues

    Someone is asking to use 15 of my photos of  James De La Vega's street art,  much of which no longer exists except in my photos, in a coffee table book.   They aren't offering money.  They are self-publishing this work...   I'm not so sure what to do.   They will give me credit and a bio, should I choose.     The book is to be published by a 'print to order' online book site:  www.blurb.com  

    I'm not sure what to do.   This is the 4th request for my photos and I shouldn't ignore it.    Nobody is going to get rich off of these,  but shit what to do....  there is so much to learn in this Jack-Of-All-Trades micro payment incomed too many irons in fire work in real time world.

    I have had so many ungrasped opportunities in this life,    I never try to grab the brass ring,    I often just watch it go by...

    This is FEAR.  I think,  fear of whatever and just plain fear.....

    I can't make a fucking decision for my life....

    Does anybody know what I should do???
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  • Panic Attacks

    I hate them.  I am having one right now.  I have to go eat and get ready for work,   although I hate these raw mornings.  I feel like someone just ripped a scab off,  somewhere on my metaphoric injury,  just to add an insult.

    I'm shaking like a leaf and inside my mind it is fall.  I hate the physical symptoms of a backwards rotating innerverse.

    That is what I am,  an emotional,  gyroscope, spinning around backward inside against the flow of things.

    "Emotional" is such a loaded word.   I do not mean weepy and outbursty,   I don't know how to describe it,  other than the inside of my body,  yes I can feel it like a shell,  feels scraped raw and I'm shaky and afraid,   not exactly sure what of,  like the world is going to end or something,   and my rationale to face it is total apathy,  perhaps even relief, at the impending thought of death and doom.

    I called in sick for work yesterday,  I had vomited early in the morning.  All light headed and dizzylike,

      My cherry on top of emotional inner meltdown with nothing showing on top,  was doing a minor act that caused a big bit of tension and a sign of relief,  i called someone and communicated with a tax man..... big deal right?

      My cherry on top of life today is that yesterday I actually had a possible low grade fever so could have had a reason for feeling so low related to a bug or sickness.

    I listened to a guided visualization and and some positive affirmations a couple of times and tried to focus on healing.

    My carpal tunnel symptoms are in the hands, bothering me,  and the stenosis in the back is minor, but i can steel (sic, a Freudian slip?) feel it,   like little spiders crawling around inside the skin between my shoulder blades.

    I feel, with all the irony of a court jester, who knows he has the best job in the castle, like one of my early transplanted mints having been set on the window ledge outside,  overly exposed to the elements,  too cold for my tastes, and having myself in the apartment, watching out the window, just for the hell of it or not... look at me every day just to see if I'll make it through the season to full blown spring/summer.

    ..   i'm telling myself:

     'fuck it,  only the strong survive'....

    I'm not even going to talk about the tax feelings.

    Taxes should not have FEELINGS!!!

    WHY?

    I really did miss my mom on Easter. 

     I see it more clearly now.

    I was my mother's egg.

    For some reason I am totally unable to cry.

    Dry.
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    When I could whine, whimper, or cry as a child, when getting in trouble with my father (a rare occurence)  he would say,  with his southern accent.

    "Dry it up, boy"

    Ok Dad,  I'm dry.
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    life is so like,  well,  like  swimming in the liquid you finally drown in, now isn't it?
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  • Easter Sundee



    My mother always made the best Easter Baskets.  The Easter Basket, usually the same one,  like a tradition, each year, filled with waxy paper easter grass,  those eggs,  you don't see them much any more, they had a hardish marshmellowy inside in a candy colored shell, they got all sticky and melted in your hands and the color got all over everything.

      My favorite, and still are,  are the malted milk ball "speckled eggs",   they used to sell tubs of them at Woolworths,  the ones with the matte, painted shell,  not the waxy shell,  I settle for "Whopper's" "Robin's Eggs" now, the closest thing, I can eat myself sick off of them....  in fact I vomited at 3AM (M&M's peanut and milk). Of course Peeps,  in my day strictly yellow Peeps existed, now they come in all shapes and color for every holiday.

     This year I saw Peep's Tulips have been added.  Also,  I have seen,  the past few years, a Peeps Egg decorating kit that comes with white Peeps eggs you can decorate... I've lost my point...

      My mother and my Easter baskets,   full of waxy paper Easter grass,  the big woven basket that came seemingly from nowhere every year, carefully planted with these treats,  the centerpiece usually a large 'fruit and nut' or egg or chocolate bunny,  or often,  she would make a "Sugar Egg",  carefully decorated and filled with a scene you could look inside at.

    She learned how to make these in Cake Decorating Class.  There was always an old dullish pink plastic egg mold,  in two halfs,  long ways,  and a clear one with sparkles inmbedded in the plastic. She would color sugar.  Sometimes I could watch.  She would color sugar in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon and drip the food coloring, a drop at a time, carefully in the sugar to get an even pastel pink,  blue,  yellow,  green....   She would pack the colored sugar into the egg mold halves and set them upside down,  cover them with waxed paper and let them dry some.   Don't dare touch them.

    Then it was Jack LaLane, the man who inhaled and exhaled to an organ trill while she stretched herself around a long black rubber band exerciser,  exercising and keeping fit,   or continued with the eggs making the insides, the colored sugar icings, getting out the metal tips and paper cones she would use to squeeze icing out to decorate and fill the eggs with tiny Easter scenes.

    Semi dry,  she would scrape the centers of the sugar egg shells out and into a Tuperware container and burp the lid,  to keep it moist and refridgerate it for possibly another egg.  Hollowing out the halves left an even suger "shell" half in each side of the mold.  One would be filled with tiny chicks or bunnies, or baskets of tiny jellyeggs "humingbird eggs".

     Flowers or little icing eggs laying in coconut or otherwise green icing grass would fill these tiny egg worlds as well before the shells were glued together with a special icing that didn't taste as good as the rest of the icings and sugar.  These Eggs were not made to be eaten.  

    I would gaze through the peephole left at the end after she would slice the tip of the half sugar shell after fully drying and being removed from the mold, filled and decorated.

      She would use a yellow for a chick,  or white for a bunny,  a tiny round metal tip on the icing squeezing tube to from a  dot of yellow for a chick body,  another dot with a pulled upward pointed at the end, like a droplet,  for the tiny chick head and tiny drops with points for wings on each side. 

    These tiny icing easter chicks would get a dot of food coloring with a toothpick on each side of the head for eyes, and a dot of red from a toothpick on their tiny icing beaks.   The white drops would get ears pulled upward with a stripe of toothpick pink for bunny ears and whiskers,  so tiny and delicate.  

    ...

    A scene completed,  the top of the sugar shell was glued to the bottom of the sugar shell,  then an icing frosty border all around the seam,  then around the eye hole, and flowers, leaves and greenery on top to top it off.

    I remember eating this stuff, breaking this stuff,  having this stuff sticking to my hands and all over my face.   I remember being sick enough to vomiting with malted milk ball eggs. 

     I remember being stuffed into painful new shoes and suited, clipped on bowtied choked and whisked off to church only to mourn this Easter basket and only want to be back home,  or going to a cousins' or aunt's or church yards to search out eggs, always always being outsmarted by some bigger kid.  Finding boiled eggs, some broken,  some candy,  milling around kinfolk toddlers and older kids  haphazardly swinging dirty Easter baskets ....

    I was blogging about my Mom and how I miss her Easter Baskets.   These would be so proudly wrapped in colored cellophane and appear mysterously at the bedside in the middle of the night.  One time I swore I saw the Easter bunny as a child even though I knew that no such beast existed.

    Thanks again Mom, for giving me the perfect childhood.  Perhaps too perfect.

    I had a meloncholy Easter and didn't do much except shred some old paper work and begin to organize the a 2 drawer file cabinet I bought at Kmart.


       

  • Dropping Your Celephone In The Toilet Is The End

    of that celephone.     It was a T-Mobile Dash and I learned that if the little strip of paper,  the sticker above the battery, on the inside of the phone turns pink,  it's a goner.  This phone plopped off my belt,  luckily in a toilet of fresh water,  however the state of the water is pretty much a moot point because if it gets wet at all,  it's dead.

    DAMN TMOBILE DAMN THEM TO HELL.

    AND DAMN THE WAR!

    I had to buy a new Dash, shit!   Affording one is relative,   I could really not afford one and I hate having the phone and spending the money but it was so frustrating without and canceling the number and everything after all this time is... well, I don't know..... I don't really even use the phone,  I'm not much of a phone talkier,  in fact, I never go over my 300 mins a month nor use the free weekend minutes.  

    I do feel guilty for not calling people,  especially my family,  but I've never been the type to pick up the phone and call someone,   in fact,  the thought gives me anxiety.  I have anxiety about talking to people on the phone.  Don't ask me why,   but I am constantly telling myself I need to do it more often.

    Of course I didn't have anxiety about talking to my mother on the phone, she was the one person I could freely call without thinking about it...... I don't know why.  But now she's gone.   I mean people always think  it's about them "oh you can call me anytime" and I know I can but it's really all about me and not the other people....

     I'm not totally anxious around every single person and at every single moment,  but the vast majority of time I am people-phobic on some level below just the surface awareness...

    It's been a detriment.  It's hard to meet people.   I am not a go-getter as far as building income goes.  I skim by on just what I need,   however am no longer a spendthrift which I use to rationalize my lack of a life,  by choice or by fear or by chosen comfort.

    Hey,  there is no fear,  only chosen comfort.

    ....Easter is early this year,  oddly,  meaning I guess that the grid of the calendar placed over the naturalness of easter is off center.   It actually is the First Sunday After the First Full Moon After the Vernal Equinox.   Spring has sprung. 

     I don't feel Easterly.  I am disappointed that I don't have a great urge to go out and photographs of the famed Easter "parade" (actually not a parade at all) on 5th Ave. and record it on YOUTUBE for posterity's sake (I'm going to have to Google 'for posterity's sake' to see what it actually means and how to use it and spell it).  

    I had been on a 'go' mode for a few months there,  going about and taking some photos,  but telling myself that the cold has kept me in.  Now I'm wondering about the Wellbutrin weening off of and if I'm going to strive for the ultimate in reclusiveness again.   Only time will tell.

    I bought an Amy Weinhouse concert DVD and a Stevie Wonder Greatest Hits yesterday on Sale at Virgin Megastore and used a $5 coupon I had.  I also Watched the rapper GRAVY,  play the role of BIGGIE SMALLS,  in the filming of a scene of NOTORIOUS,  the story of the THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. in a movie of the famed rapper gunned down under suspicious rapper and gangsta' circumstances.

    Hollywood is in New York.

    Did you know there are movie and tv studios in Queens, as well as in 'the city'?  Many shows are and have been filmed here during the years. 

    This was on 14th Street and the scene was so tight,  Biggie getting out of a car with a few fans asking for autographs and lines going back and forth between two characters while a camera on a track rolled backward and rose up,  that I couldn't worm my way into the rather small crowd of extras tightly formed around the famous rapper.  

     They had fake camera's flashing on big poles, big lights to get camera flash effects, and the extras were all holding up their cameras and record covers and pretending to scream,  but not really screaming loud.  The actors spit back their lines and got in the car and drove ten inches and "CUT" and over and over....

    Cool to live in the Big City and to see the world at its axis... and this just during my lunch hour in the work-a-day world.

    I've got to go look at the answers to the Times Crossword I could not finish yesterday nor today.
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  • Someone Else Wrote This But I Thought It Was Important

    Throughout the 80's the U.S. conducted a proxy war against Iran, supplying Saddam Hussein with arms, technologies, intelligence and other means. There were atrocities committed during that war by Iraqi forces against the Iranians and Iraqi citizens alike. Reagan sent Rumsfield to Iraq to slap Saddam's wrist but business continued as usual. We were, at the same time, covertly and clandestinely supplying the Iranians with arms as well. The duplicity of this policy ALONE leaves the U.S. without moral standing in the Iraq quagmire.
     
     The deceiptful and hypocritical nature of U.S. foreign policy in that region goes back even farther and runs even deeper than this though. Saddam Hussein was IN FACT being told through U.S. diplomatic channels that the U.S. would overlook an Iraqi annexation of Kuwait, right up to the time that he actually DID so. He was a monsterous brute, there can be neither debate concerning the fact nor defense of the man's character.

    Nevertheless, the case that was made to go to war has been discredited by the facts and mere removal of a tyrant does not NOW justify the loss of life and treasure, to either us OR the poor people of Iraq. Yesterday, Geo. Bush II said, and this is a paraphrase but close enough, " The war in Iraq isn't affecting the economy. We're still buying (a LOT of) equipment and THOSE people are still working.

     
    The problem with the economy is that we built TOO MANY HOUSES (!) and the economy needs to "adjust"..... What a stupid, stupid thing to say and who would say such a thing who wasn't monumentally stupid himself. There WERE no WMDs, there wasn't even any Iraqi DOCUMENTATION to even SUGGEST that Saddam Hussein either HAD them in hand OR that he and his government were working on ACQUIRING any. It is apparent now that the Iraqi regime of the time actually HAD turned over everything they had pertaining to the subject, to U.N inspectors as they had continually asserted in the months leading up to war.

    They COULDN'T turn anything else over to the U.N or anybody else because there was NOTHING left to turn over. NEITHER has there been found ANY link, between Saddam's Bathist regime and Al Queda or any other terrorist group. A newly released Pentagon report goes into great detail and concludes there was NO support, co-operation or IDEOLOGICAL ties to any terrrorist organization.

    The motives for this war were transparent to observers such as myself. I recall a conversation with a gentleman from Scotland, during the Presidential campaign of eight years ago when I supported John McCain. "John McCain?" he said, "McCain is a WAR-MONGER!

     
     He will get us into a war. No, you want George Bush. Bush is a BUSINESS man. He'll be good for the economy." My reply was this." IF the powers that be manage to get George Bush elected, it will be for one reason and one reason alone, and that is to FINISH the job his daddy STARTED." I said at the time, "If George Bush is installed as president, we will be at war in Iraq within a year." Guess what.

     I was right then and I am right now. It is now known that the Bush/Chaney cabal was planning their Iraq strategy and laying plans for the invasion of Iraq even BEFORE he was "elected" and was the first order of business "from day one" in the new Bush White House. WHO represents a "threat" to WHO'S way of life? Liars and hypocrites, that's who.

     
     
    someone's comment from the 60 Minutes website's post about the military personnel making an appeal to stop the war.

  • THREE ANGRY RANTS IN ONE BLOG

  • Cellphone In The Toilet

    ..last night.  At least it was my home toilet,  with clean water (as clean as toilet water can be) and as I unbelted, to sit,  it popped off of my belt, in its case and rubber skin,  but then acted funny and this morning does not work at all.
    fuck me.
    (shriek)

    yes i opened it and set it out to dry.  there was water on the sim card, and battery and the storage card....

    it started doing wierd things,  calling strange nonsense numbers,  turning its camera on by itself.... 
    god knows i tried.

    today it is as black as my mood.

    now I know why amy weinhouse is so fucked up

  • HAPPY SPRING EQUINOX!!!

    THAT'S WHAT I MEANT TO WRITE
    shit am I pissed!, I gotta watch myself today and keep to myself...

    ...I hope the anger doesn't follow me.

    ..my blood is fucking boiling and believe me, this hardly ever happens!

    Remember a few days ago I blogged about the shifty construction sites all over the city,  and then the huge crain fell?

    The last time I had HUGE EMOTION,  like this ANGER,  a terrible thing happened.
    I have FEAR NOW
    of GLOBAL DISASTER
    or NATIONAL TRAGEDY
    ON THIS FIRST DAY OF SPRING
    THE YEAR OF OUR DEVIL,  2008  (refers to the Bush Monster)

    this is not a psychic prediction
    all rights reserved
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    let's wait until tomorrow,  or this evening,  to blog again about what may have happened in the meantime.
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  • There Are So Many Things To Be Angry About Today

    ...most specifically,  our COMMUNIST FRIENDS to the East, the (excuse my french) FUCKING CHINESE!!
        Get them the HELL OUT OF TIBET

       if we can SELL THEM SOMETHING,  then who cares if they are RED COMMIES???

     DIDN"T I SPEND THE EARLY PART OF MY LIFE AFRAID OF COMMUNISTS< AND THE LEGACY LEFT BY THE COLD WAR GENERATION????

         Don't you AMERICANS SEE that all of this INTERACTION with the CHINESE regarding TOYS AND SAFETY  is nothing but a lead in to STANDARDIZATION>>> GLOBALIZATION??

      PRETTY SOON THE FDA will run the world....

        WHY IS IT THAT AMERICAN CHILDREN ARE THE STUPIDEST CHILDREN AND END UP CHOKING ON TOYS???

       now I want to say some valid facts after these rants..

       1.  American has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world.

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    CNN.com - U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world ...

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       2. American has more PRISONERS than any other country on the planet INCLUDING CHINA.

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    The Prison-Industrial Complex

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    It's the first day of spring and when I turn on the news and see what is happening in the world,  I can hardly stand to be here.

    I'm so ashamed of MY COUNTRY
    THE ANGRY AMERICAN
    THE EMBARRASSED AMERICAN

    HELLO WORLD<  PLEASE DON"T BLAME ME!!!  I KNOW WE ARE A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITES.

    I'm angry.  I'm expressing anger.

    DOES ANY ONE WATCH JERICO?
    The scenario of a CORPORATION having EMPLOYEES BECOME POLITICIANS,  STAGING AN ACT OF TERROR ON OUR OWN PEOPLE IN ORDER TO GAIN MORAL SUPPORT AGAINST A COMMON ENEMY AND INSTILL FEAR INTO A POPULATION
    ALL IN THE NAME OF GLOBALIZATION<  IMPERIALISTIC THEFT  GETTING OIL IN THE NAME OF PROFIT..

    I BELIEVE is not so far fetched.

    OH GOD I"M SO ANGRY TODAY!

    I feel anger welling up inside me and I don't know why!
    I hope it's not Wellbutrin withdrawl

    I didn't intend to write this today... It's just the fucking Chinese GOVERNMENT and
    And the PATHETIC AMERICAN MEDIA!


    HOLY SHIT,   is it just my age or have we always been THIS FUCKED UP?

    YOU KNOW WHAT'S ON THE NEWS NOW???

    JUICYCAMPUS.COM AND HOW IT AFFECTS PEOPLE.

    I LOVE YOU ALL BUT WE'RE ALL JUST STUPID SHITHOLES.

  • Freudian Slip

    In my last post I said I wore my "CASHIER" Sweater,   fully meaning my "CASHMIER" Sweater.  A Freudian slip to be sure.