So the main part of my site is going to be down, or at the very least weird for the rest of the week. I'm doing a redesign, a pretty major one, and things are jumbled. The blog part should be good for now, but that too will change.

One of the main reasons for the redesign is that I'm bored with the largeness of the current one. It's too big and requires to much dicking around every day. Martha has seen the new design and does not like it; probably because it is so very, very different from what is currently up.

Martha can now officially hold up one hand and the thumb of the other when she speaks of The Steelers. Even though we had to miss The L Word (damn!) it was a great game. A true nail biter or in my case a pacer.



I am currently in a show in Portland called Flora & Fauna and I'm going to be in another show in San Francisco in March. Completely freaking me out is that I am going to be one of the Featured Artists in issue number 13 (of course) of Lightleaks Magazine. Crazy stuff. I have to gather all this material, (photo of myself, bio, 10-12 images) and I've just kind of seized up and not started anything. I have a history of shooting myself in the foot but at least this time, Martha is fully entrenched in my business bullshit (lucky girl) so I can't stray too much off track and waste the day taking weird photos of shit around the house.

Like this:





Or this:



Or being the human Greenies dispenser for Lily. She's pretty much on an on-demand feeding schedule. She demands food and I give it to her. She's 9 pounds of persistence and being almost 17 years old, she can have whatever the hell she wants, whenever the hell she wants it.

I keep having the feeling as if I am forgetting something. Like something major. Or that I am forgetting to worry about something. Maybe if I would actually focus on something like the Lightleaks stuff I wouldn't feel that way. Painful, I know.

I found out that there used to be a house in our back, back yard. We have this weird fence in the middle of the yard that splits the property in two. Half of the fence is chain link and ugly and the other half was a rotting picket fence that Martha and I knocked down last fall. That's right, we did yard work. Anyway, I always thought the half-metal half-wood fence and the location of the fence was odd. But you know, there are so many odd things with a 109 year old house that you just kind of shrug your shoulders and move on.

But we had a plumber at the house last week, (more odd things) and he mention that there used to be a house back there and the driveway was on the other side of the house. This explains the weird fence and oddly, why the dear use that side of the house as a superhighway, complete with rest stop facilities. A mother and her son lived back there and sometime in the 80's the house burnt down. They got out but still.

So now I'm creeped out every time I look out the kitchen window. I knew there was a reason I'm never very comfortable in the back, back yard. Well, aside from the obvious reasons of being outside in the grass.

Saturday I arrived at my therapists office about ten minutes early so I sat down in a semi crowed waiting room full of varying degrees of depressed, bipolar, jumpy, nervous people and waited. I didn't want to read any of the magazines because I have a 'thing' about touching reading material that is left out for the public to read. It's a germ thing. Or better yet, I think it's a New York germ thing.

I view public magazines like a public toilet. You never know where someone's hands have been and people are disgusting. I've seen people sneeze into magazines, lick their fingers to turn pages, causally pick their noses, rub their eyes and scratch their heads all while turning pages of a magazine, only to throw it back on the coffee table of place it back on the sales rack.

I'm so glad I could give my neurosis to all of you. You can thank me later.

Anyway, I was just sitting there when for a split-second I thought I heard a song over the speakers that could not be possibly playing. I perked up my ears and holy shit, no way...yes; yes, there it was in all its fantastic living soundtrack glory... Brain Damage & Eclipse.

I SWEAR TO GOD. Swear to God, swear to God. Not even close to kidding. Watch and Love:



The other folks in the waiting room went on about their business of reading magazines and subconsciously shifting around in their chairs. Probably because I was staring at each and every one of them to see if ANYONE noticed what was playing on the radio.

I started giggling and sort of laughing a little too out loud; an interesting place to do that and an interesting group of folks to do that in front of. It is a mental health facility after all and everyone in the waiting room is there for a reason. Considering that in the past this song has brought tears to my eyes, the absurdity of the situation was refreshing. Moments like that are why I really do, deep down, love life.


* all images Canon Powershot s5is

Another week and another crown needed in my mouth. I think I might have reached the point where my mouth is more valuable than the sum of all my parts. I'm still in a holding pattern as to whether or not I need a root canal but regardless the problem tooth is cracked and there will be gold there.

Saturday, Martha backed the car out of the garage and hit the top of the garage door, cracking the rim off the back of the Prius. The rim houses part of the brake lights and upon closer inspection she didn't just crack it, she ripped the bolts out of the metal. That cannot be good. Our guess is that we will need a completely new hatch. I wonder which will cost more, my tooth or fixing the Prius?

The rim is very loose and considering Martha has to drive the car 70 miles an hour for 90 minutes down the fucking highway, I wanted to duck tape the broken part to the car so it doesn't fly off the back and kill someone.

"I don't want to drive in a car with duck tape!" Martha yelled.
"No one does babe. No one does, but trust me, this is my area of expertise."

So the Prius has a big crack in it and so does my tooth. Seems like a week of cracks.

Speaking of cracked, while watching The L Word last night:

"I hate these two." I mumbled to Martha while watching Bette and Tina groping at each other's black bras.
"I hate all of them. They're all so boring." She replied.
"Well can't stand watching these two fuck. You know who I do not mind watching is Shane. If I had to pick. Not sure why but it doesn't bother me like the rest of them."

About ten minutes later Shane kissed Jenny.

I threw my hands up in the air and said, "Oh never fucking mind. The last thing I want to see is the two of them. Jesus Christ."

If you don't know what I'm talking about, or do not know who these people are, consider yourself fortunate.

And OMG are they really going to do a storyline involving a F2M pregnancy? Seriously? Why, why, why? And why does the F2M have to look like a member of the GI Joe Adventure Team?



So the Steelers are in the Super Bowl. Two of the three members of this family are official Steelers fans so it should be fun. Jasmine bought Martha some Pittsburgh Swag and it will be in full bloom come Sunday. Whenever you mention the Steelers to Martha inevitability, she raises her hand, spreads her fingers and says "Five". I am a fan, for the most part, but I wasn't raised in the 'burgh, nor do I have that distinct Pittsburgh dialect that is so endearing.




* Martha photo: LG Cellphone

We were fifteen minutes away from the ball dropping and I could not keep my eyes open. I think it was the total boredom of it all. I can stay awake if I really want to but I just wasn't into it.

Ah yes, times are so very, very different.

It seems just like yesterday that for one particular New Years Eve I was in Pittsburgh, at an old gothic bank that had been converted into a gay disco. With my head full of acid, I stood on the balcony and watched hundreds of pink and white balloons drop from the cathedral ceiling and cascade over the dance floor. I must say it was pretty cool. When I was young and oh so stupid, the greatest thing about New Years was that it happened very early in the evening. Midnight is nothing to someone who understands that the sunrise is the end of night signal. I really did live like a vampire.

Now, I can't even stay awake for it all.

Anyway, back to bullshit and no more fun and games. It is back to reading 'How to keep your job' lists and '10 things to do if you are let go' or 'How to Make the Most of Unemployment'. Or hey, how about a free Resume Critique?

Boy, if there ever were a time for all of us to be 'tripping' I would think that now is just about as good as any. I also happen to think that now is a great time to be a raging alcoholic but that is just the deep denial in me wanting to spend that days wasted rather than be hyperaware. Obama can't fix EVERYTHING now can he?

Over the years, instead of me working towards something more employable with my life, like becoming a plumber, I was messing around with computers. Not in that, 'I write databases and I'm going to be rich as shit' way, but more of a 'I make pretty pictures and resign myself to a life of low income' way.

I've been screwing around with computers since 1987. I've had a computer in the house since 1992 and I have had one particular email address since 1993. I've had my own website since 1999, although the Wayback Machine only has me back to 2001. I was on the internet before it was the internet and sent files over phone lines before people had modems. I taught myself MS-DOS (!) so I could use a computer. There was no Windows or MAC there was just DOS.

I have computer graphic illustrations and 3d animations that are stored on 230 MB Bernoulli disks, at least 100, 250 MB Zip disks and another 100, 680 MB tape backups. Long gone are the computers that I owned that could read that media. The amount of computer equipment that I have contributed to landfills is about equal to that of a small, 10-15 person business.

There are stacks and binders full of 35m negatives,



stacks and binders full of Holga negatives and binders filled with slides all shelved in the photo room.



The majority of which, have never been printed because I do not have an enlarger and cannot afford to have it sent out. There are paper boxes filled with prints,



printed work, published work, portfolios, and boxes and tins filled with Polaroid prints.

I have accordion files filled with writing, Xerox art, thermal art, gallery submissions, show cards and press coverage.



There is one closet totally devoted to frames, glass, and matte boards. It goes on and on in a fucking endless loop of work. At this point to live an uncluttered life is impossible.



I'm always bitching that shooting digital photos are just shooting the hell out of something. Shooting to shoot and if everyone is shooting then who is actually participating in any one event that is being shot. The whole snake/tail thing in living, blinding digital color.

But I'm no better. I keep adding to my shit. But if I keep adding to my body of work and the computer work that I created 15 years ago is inaccessible to me, yet I keep it with me, and then just create more work, to be stored and archived...well, I'm a little confused as to what it is that I am doing. I am an Artist. I don't know how to be anything else. But if I stop contributing to my catalog, am I still an artist? Am I only an artist if I am working on art?

I think in order for me to not get bogged down with the stuff that is the stuff of creation, it would be a great idea if after I'm done with whatever I'm working on, I hand it off for someone else to deal with. Then I could keep moving forward, instead of living backwards.

Tolling around in my negatives and moving though computer files drains me. It drains me of the very thing that I need to have in me that keeps me awake. Curiosity.

Clearly I'm in some kind of funk. It seems to be an odd combination of cynical optimism and angry fear. But me being in a funk isn't the 'I'm a New York Trust fund jackass on a screwy arts endowment yet I'm creatively depressed' thing.

Hardly.

I am creatively depressed due to my sifting through 6 years of digital photography that I shot for the Voice. I'm building a new portfolio/business site for myself and I've been pulling work for the photo gallery sections. We are talking years of work whittled down to a presentable 8-10 image slide show.

After a while, it gets weird.
After a while, I get weirder.
After a while it all starts to feel like nothing more than a middle-age scramble for meaning.

I get to the point where I can't do it anymore. I can't think about it and I can't even remember the point of the whole exercise.

I could go on and on, and clearly I have but if we were just chatting, I'd probably still be talking and you would most certainly be looking for a way to get away from me. My point, and I think I have one in there, is that it's a sucky time to be an artist. It's a sucky time to be anything other than rich as a fucking emperor and just like everyone else, I haven't a clue as to what to do.

And yes Martha, I took my pill.