the draining feeling

i think we've all been there
that draining sinking greasy feeling
which coats your insides like Pepto Bismol
but instead of indigestion relief it turns
stomach butterflies into bats with claws
dulls your head and turns your good memories into
chiming flashes of horror movies
except you would welcome the hokey Freddy or
stomping Jason
i think we've all been there,
when inadequacy bites your brightest day,
and every friend seems distant on separate moons
little princes with sheep’s in drawn boxes
a different drummer in death dirges, surging with
nothing
where the whole world pancakes you with
dry Bisquick serum
where you know how not to feel
but it's like being at the bottom of a well
and their throwing scraps from the tiny lit up hole at the top
like, these compliments are tasty but I can't get myself to eat em
where’s the point?
i think we've all been there
that sickening bed-ridden Sunday afternoon where TV sucks
grays bundled with late awakening
and homework’s a joke
and every thought is a pang in the side of hope
everything is now
everything is past
nothing is future
cell with missed calls
cell with brick walls
cells where blood curdles
looking for the escalator which will bring you back to norm
out of order signs on every upward motion
an empty mall where the doors are locked and the lights are dim
and expression is told through retail
and ghosts of teenage hand-held's dance around your sulking body
i think we've all been there
where you sit on your friends couch and everyone is having fun
and suddenly things get weird
you don’t know why
and you make mock appearances to hold the table weight
but as soon as you leave the plates crash off to the side
the golden mean deceived and not divine
it's physical
its mental
its bland groceries and being single
its being together and fighting
its looking up in the sky and instead of seeing
the vast grand scheme of a trillion fires
and the potential for everything
you shrink at the tininess of life
think of death and the stinging bite
brought to you by the letters
h-e-l and P
your Oscar the grouch
your Helen Keller with clipped wings
your Diogenes the cynic
the dirty laundry piles
and i think we've all been there
where home is where the cold is
and the chill is in your spine
and the job is going no where
and your goals are caught in time
caged within a darkened skull
which it was never meant to be
and I never wanted to be that guy who sat glooming
wallowing in his own pity
the over privileged kid telling those less fortunate and more happy that life sucks
i don't believe it for a second
but this isn't about logic
or belief
or the warm halo which spins miles above where you sit
in the muddy chill of cold winds
in a Poe like house of leaves
where your best bet is sleep
but rotten energy courses through veins
like nu clear water through tall trees
and i never wanted this
large stinking mammal
hippopotamus promises
bronze doorknobs turning to reveal brick walls
i think we've all been there
and then you begin to crawl
towards a path where
vegetation peaks through concrete slabs on urban streets
and I’m mad max conquering the Thunderdome
lighting the path with a match and pack
in fact, this path is past its prime and I’m pouring new
angles inside of the melting pot
no drugs
no destiny
no emergencies
and it's a slow walk
Dylan said a hard rains going fall
and I’m wiping the sweat and inventing the wheel
I’m scrubbing the dirt and knowing the deal
coming out of it, how can i help my family
my friends
my fellow man
remove asbestos and get lead out of GI Joe's
remove the stalker which sometimes sneaks up out of no where and
takes hold of me
chloroform muffled
have a vigilant eye
by still walking forward
and i think we've all been there

Albany

Went looking for apartments here today. Spent about four hours just walking by myself, getting a lay of the land. Albany has that bleak sort of urban desolation that goes with an over abundance of concrete, hollow-tunneled malls and older white men eating McDonald's while contemplating legislative strategy. I always heard that this was such a big party town, but I couldn't help feeling I was in the USSR. Maybe it was the gray skies or cold wind but in a word - yuck. None the less, I did find a lot of apartments within walking distance of the Legislative Gazette. Hopefully things will seem less Chernobyl-y once I settle in.

floors

Silence is the sadness of the scenes left strewn on the cutting room floor
the negatives of positives
the stored energy of coiled mattress springs
inside those light burlap eyes I saw melted tar on summer roofs
and meteors drizzle slowly like ash
and through that damn Folgers hair
I saw duck ponds and frozen moments
bringing you green tea when you're sick
and wrists which could save men from deep cliffs
and in those glacier shark eyes I saw country dirt roads
freshly peeled corncob hair
and my fingers
hunt through 140,000 strands of hair
to touch the oasis of your ears
and past her dusk lily pad eyes
i stared when you sat
so I could see the space between your hips and jeans leave ocarina sized gaps of darkness in between
and then

"Some circles of hell can’t be squared." - Frank Rich

O.K., so essentially, President Obama wants to send over 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, the second escalation of troops in his presidency so far. You can see here that by 2011, we will have over 100,000 troops there fighting terrorists, specifically al-Qaida (you can compare this to Vietnam troop levels here, even though Obama clearly told us they're incomparable in his speech at West Point.) So to try to understand this better, I went to try to find out how many al-Qaida are in Afghanistan. Yes, it can only really be an estimate considering the border situation, but an estimate is better than nothing.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the current Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) of U.S. Forces Afghanistan (strangely blank) said this on September 11, 2009:

"I do not see indications of a large al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan now,"

Not to be quoted out of context, (he is a military leader after all) he also said of Al Qaeda's relationship with the Taliban:

"I do believe that al-Qaida intends to retain those relationships because they believe it is symbiotic ... where the Taliban has success, that provides a sanctuary from which al-Qaida can operate transnationally."

It's also important to realize that in 2001, when we originally went into Afghanistan, U.S. forces removed the Taliban from power. Yet, the Council on Foreign Relations does say that:

"Though the group has been out of power for several years, it remains a cultural force in the region that operates parallel governance structures aimed at undermining the U.S.-backed central government. "

Ok, so then you have to ask yourself, why is it a cultural force? Why would people openly support a group associated with supporting al-Qaida? Well, despite the Taliban's bad rap, which they've earned in spades, they've had success in "eliminating corruption, restoring peace, and allowing commerce to resume," according to Infoplease. None the less, following strict Sharia Law, they practice the stoning of women. Executions are also common place.

So why are we going to Afghanistan? Al-Quaida is barely there, and the Taliban, although still popular amongst some groups, isn't in power. Without saying it outright, President Obama essentially said we're there to prevent them from coming back into power. Prevention. As opposed to being attacked. That is essentially the Bush Doctrine, isn't it?

Life, there it is.

Pablo Ortiz Monasterio

ZOMBIES

My Favorite Toys From Back in the Day:

Rat Fink Hydroracer: You would fill the toxic waste tank with water then attach it to the Gokart with the giant Fat Man-esque bomb on the back. Pump it up and it would fly across the rug, soaking it thoroughly. Sorry Mom.

Winston Zeddemore: Would change colors I think. Colors were sooooo bad-ass.

Ninja Turtles Tank: Shot Pizza's at a clip of 5 every 10 seconds. Nailed grandma right in the butt with this one. Merry Christmas.

Crash Dummies: Tasteless fun. I had the mower, motorcycle, Piston Head and Bull. I remember someone told me they got all their crash dummies taken into the attic when their grandma went through the windshield of their car. Awkward Mattel...

Stolen Space Vampire

O.K. New York Public library, if you want my 1987 copy of Space Vampire, come and get it. Through careful, well thought out deduction, cunning wit and dashing good looks, my 8-year-old self weaved through a spaceship where invincible vampires ruled the roost. Admittedly, I glanced through the pages to see which was the wrong choice here and there, but for being a fresh face cadet with everything to prove, I think I chose my own adventure pretty adeptly. My family moved out of the city before I ever had a chance to return the book, an act that my young self half-feared and half-reveled in. Today, it sits on my book shelf as a testament to a few things:

* My passion for Choose Your Own Adventure Books
* My passion for space
* My passion for vampires
* My passion for space vampires
* How, despite myself, I really loved going to that huge library as a kid, passing those giant stone lions and picking out the cheesiest adventure novels I could get my hands on.

In all honesty, this series which started in the 1970's is pretty awesome. Any series which could have over 75 different titles such as "Rock and Roll Mystery," "Volcano!," and "The Antimatter Formula," AND make it so you could choose your own ending has to be good. Despite plot holes the size of death valley, nonsensical dead ends, and cliches so tired their practically in a coma, these books were exactly what got me into reading. That and the sweet cover art.

I can only imagine what the overdue fee on this book is, and how through the Patriot Act they might find this post and track me down. Well come and get it Bloomburg, I'm feeling lucky.

Love is a Bleached T-Shirt

The gray tee
with the dull peach splotch on the right shoulder
Where until four o'clock in the morning
we'd sit and watch Law and Order reruns
and you'd lay your Proactiv face on my shoulder
You'd grumble when I told you to take out your contacts before you went to sleep.
That t-shirt is love.

Clocked Out

On Dark Roasted Blend they have an article on astronomical clocks. One has a gear which would take 20,000 years to rotate once. Others are huge, color-laden monuments which are still awed upon despite the advent of wristwatches. You can also see the remnants of The Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek clock between 150 and 100 B.C. Mostly, these things just look incredible and make me feel like I'm in a sequel to Myst. Ironically, it's time-keeping devices like these which can make you feel a real connection to antiquity.

On Minds and Eyes

In the theater of war, sometimes it's Broadway and sometimes it's that smoking little black box theater near the docks. In this article, the Joint Chiefs are recommending an immediate shift from Iraq to Afghanistan. On March 19th, 2003 we went to war with Iraq, under the false notion of WMD's. Ok, recap finished. War's one of those funny things. Not "Alway's Sunny..." funny, either. It's so big and so horrible and has so many people and facets and suits and shiny things that it begins to have the attributes of a circus. Generals with whips, giant elephants tanks, trapeze bunker busters falling gracefully in the rafters. And it's impossible to watch it all. At a certain point you begin to take it all for granted. Then you see something like this. (WARNING, this is a pretty graphic image.) Images like this are graphic enough from your desk. Imagine being there, breathing in the taste of smoke and watching people run into houses and under things for cover. It's amazing to me how we are a species endowed with the desire to be near each other, yet mostly devoid of the ability to feel empathy for those outside of our immediate sight. I've been pretty pessimistic lately, despite gains in certain aspects of government policy and attitudes which have shifted (for now). Who knows if we ever really learn lessons. We see pain, yet it's easy to be so complacent that we forget how much agony war truly brings. How much of that is happening right now? As soon as we start separating each other, we begin to lose the ability to empathize with others. I think it's just important to be reminded of the actual physical carnage of war. No one really wants to see it, but usually after the immediate shock wanes, what's left is a sense of urgency, concern, and hopefully some sense of human morality. The out of sight out of mind credo just doesn't cut it anymore.

Where To Go?

Take a look at this.
- Small scale Hooverville's in California and New York.
- I remember visiting a homeless shelter last fall here in Newburgh, NY and talking to the director. He mentioned how even that summer the shelters were filling up to capacity like he had never seen before.
- The other day I was hanging out with some friends in the City of Newburgh and a guy named Cartier rolled up on a bike. He said someone had thrown it out and he fixed it up. Cartier had recently been released from upstate prison on attempted murder charges. He said he applied to 10 different jobs now that he was out but nobody wants to hire a felon. He was living under the Newburgh Beacon Bridge.
I don't really know how to connect these events, and I won't try to pass judgment. But it seems like there's something to all this, isn't there? Some silent thing which we can all see but which stays silent and moves gradually like a glacier; under the rug?

Art and Suicide

To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
-William Shakespeare's, Hamlet

I suppose I should at least pay lip service to the name of this blog. I think when people usually hear the word suicide in America they cringe. It is a taboo. Something flips in their stomach like a fish yanked out of the water and placed on the ground. Perhaps rightfully so. It's not a fun subject for most, especially since when mentioned in any type of serious format, you have to wonder if the person who brings it up it trying to signal you in some subtle or not so subtle way. We live in a nation where you can stream your impending destruction live for thousands of on lookers cheering you on like a fantasy football league. Yet when suicide is combined with art, I believe we re-frame the act of suicide.

I think there's a tendency to see suicide as an affirmation of the deepness of the artist and, by association, their work. It's romanticized. A sad but powerfully emotional tragedy in which the likes of Kurt Cobain "just couldn't take it anymore." In which Heath Ledger became so inundated with his role as the Joker that it consumed him. For Sylvia Plath's son, Nicholas Hughes, it was something that plagued their family. The question remains, what is arts relationship with suicide?

A teacher once told me that your art is supposed to save you. No matter how depressing, negative, cynical or depraved that art may be. Isn't art by it's nature an affirmation of life? In some, by saying "This matters!" aren't you denying death's grasp on life and its inevitably? If by romanticizing suicide with it's relation to art, does that mean that death ultimately is more potent then art? It negates art's larger message?
You can find that suicide in many cultures is considered noble and required. A samurai going into battle against a thousand warriors will do better if he sees himself as already dead, and therefore might do better in his battle. Yet we see here that this isn't exactly suicide. Or is it? Maybe this relates more to Seppuku.
I feel that associating a positive attitude towards suicide's role in art neglects the true purpose of art itself. Do we still romanticize it today? Do you? At the very least, confrontation of the subject shouldn't frighten you.
That being said here's a link of suicide letters, some of which I found pretty poetic, others not. I also found this book.

-James

Making History

I think i've watched this a bakers dozen times. Keeps me laughing. If you have anything beyond funny and with some production value let me know i'd love to know about it. I want to start taking this blog in the direction of staying ahead of the curve (or at least parallel to it...can you stay parallel to a curve?) on art, videos etc, and hope people will participate. peace, james.

Gustav Klimt

I can't take my eyes off this painting. I definitively fall into the category of "may not know art but I know what I like," and there's just something about this painting that grabs my attention and makes me stare. The fuzzy paleness of the girls face, the gold dangling precariously from around her ankle, while the toes seem to curve in ecstasy. The way they seem to sit on a precipice of flowers beyond a bleak yet vaguely warm backdrop of brownish gold. You can get some basic information on him here, but I recommend walking into a bargain section of a Barnes & Noble or preferably your local bookstore and seeing if they have the over sized picture books of his work. If anyone would like to share an artist I'd be glad to take a look, i'm always looking for something moving.

Rock and Roll, Blue Jeans, Rap =The Civilization of the Future!

While searching randomly online I came upon this video of an interview of theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. Here he talks about where our civilization stands in the grand scheme of energy use, culture, communication, and what could de-rail us in the future. To summerize, we are a Type 0 civilization, gaining our energy from dead plants and animals (i.e. coal, oil). Type 1 derives their energy directly from the sun, Type 2 from the solar system, and Type 3 the galaxy. Now if that sounds like science fiction, we can take solace in the fact that Kaku goes on to say that the internet is the beggining of a Type 1 communicaton system, along with our pop culture and economy not being far behind (as he estimates, 100 years). Knowing that scientists sometimes have trouble articulating ideas in laymens terms, I found Kaku to be pretty entertaining.
Kaku also warns that things such as nuclear proliferation, germ warfare, and global warming are hurdles that prevent us from reaching these new types of civilization. I found it interesting that their were actual benchmarks in the progress of our own civilization, a tanglible set of goals to strive for that everyone could participate in in their own way. As I looked further into this theory, I found that Kaku had extended the civilization types to include things such as economy, culture, and language, expanding on the Kardashev Scale which mostly dealt with energy (By and by, I guess were at about .71, still a while away from Type 1.)
This L.A. Times article also talks about where we stand on this scale. If Kaku is right, the politics, choices and and decisions of today are infinitely more important then we may realize. If we really are at the threshold of a new type of society, then the responsibility we hold to assure it's continuation could be in some history book in a thousand years, maybe as the generation who led the them into a new era. Or maybe it'll be a handful of people standing in 140 degree weather all day wondering what ever happened to that crazy "snow" we used to have, and how the hell we managed to screw things up. Either way, it kinda puts some perspective on the decisions we make today.