we are still here

update......... i havent used this blog in one thousand years. i do not own a computer of my own, and when i get access to one, i can only think of so many things to do with it, and watching apple jacks animations, tv shows, bbc news, naked ladies, and being a pirate all come before blog. so it is i have come to be here only now.
anyway.
it is december. i still live here, where i do. I have some new roommates. the winter is cold in a warehouse. christmas is coming very soon.
we were driving, and i was remembering where you live, and how i could have lived there too; but now we were driving, and you were sleeping inside your house, and i knew you were there, even though we didn't stop to make sure it was true. And I thought of how many things I know that are true, and how some thoughts can be revelations even when they are old and used out, and I wished i could remember these things all the time so i could build past them and be amazed at something less common. But I always forget how many people there really are, and how they are moving, and doing so many things, inventing and understanding. Making connections and crushing and being crushed. And I thought if i could always keep the thought in my mind of equality amongst us all that i would start to do things differently, to treat someone better, to say different things. But I forgot again, and I was still myself, and it took one thousand houses flying by a window to remind me that it was so. And it seemed like nothing changes, and that the moments of clarity were few and far between, and that maybe even the times where i thought i was so close to seeing the biggest picture i was still so far away. And maybe as i go on, i find more and more that i dont get what i want, but only a clearer understanding of what that is in the first place. And like the bird freed from his cage who returns to it so that he still may have something to wish for*, i go along, hoping i could remember and reach an end, knowing that there never was one to start with.

(*Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions)

I just finished my first ayn rand book, anthem. it was short, and easy, and great. im also reading gabriel garcia marquez's one hundred years of solitude. it has wonderful moments. I am thinking i need to start to exercise maybe. and get my ass back on the drawing/painting/creating something, for God's sake..... board.

that's why

i got the thing that ive wanted for 6 years. someday the computer will have pictures.


http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEmono/TLE2003May15/TLE2003May15.html

a list of demands

we want to know - did we turn it on it's head, did we rock the boat?
or have we been jumping through so many invisible hoops, unaware of our own boudning feet, unseeing of the beaten path and that same old same old same old same old thing?
we want to know did it matter? we want you to maybe confirm for us that indeed, it maybe certainly did.
we want a firm handshake or reassuring look.
we want our love to be proud of the fact that we're the only one they will be coming home to and loving and fucking for the rest of our blessed, beleaguered lives.
we want the oppurtunity to present itself, we want to wake up a bit earlier, stay out a bit later, work hard, play hard.
we want to hold your confidence, we want to give you the best advice.
we want to smile knowingly, to speak in complex riddles and elaborate on subjects.
we hope we can tell the truth.
we want to be a better lover than anyone before or after, or at least to hear you say so
we want to already know what we've done before being told that we've done it.
we want the recognition, we want it to change.
sometimes we want it to stay the same.
we want to know what is best, middle, and worst, to be sympathetic and understand.
we hope that we really care.
we want to stop you with our stare; we want our fingers to make goosebumps embroider your skin, every single time.
we want you to want to do the same for us.
we want it not be so important, we want it to be everything.
we want to relax, make the right choice, feel like it was somehow worth it, every single time.
we hope upon hope that we were right. God, how we do hope that.

more like blah mitzvah

Some Rules and Hints for Students and Teachers
By John Cage
RULE 1: Find a place you trust and then, try trusting it for a while
RULE 2: GENERAL DUTIES AS A STUDENT Pull everything out of your teacher.Pull everything out of your fellow students.
RULE 3:GENERAL DUTY AS A TEACHER Pull everything out of your students.
RULE 4:Consider everything an experiment.
RULE 5:Be self disciplined.This means finding someone smart or wise and choosing to follow them.To be disciplined is to follow in a good way.To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
RULE 6:Follow the leader Nothing is a mistake.There is no win and no fail.There is only make.
RULE 7:The only rule is work If you work it will lead to something. It is the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch onto things. You can fool the fans - but not the players.
RULE 8:Do not try to create and analyze at the same time. They are different processes.
RULE 9:Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It is lighter than you think.
RULE 10:We are breaking all the rules, even our own rules and how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for 'x' qualities.

HELPFUL HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read everything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully and often. Save everything. It may come in handy later.

update! i cant find my camera!
also i fell down my ladder recently, and hurt my hand.
also, the guy cleaning the walls outside my window can clearly tell that when he sprays the window that water sprays inside the house. and he can clearly see me sitting in pajamas and refuses to acknowledge me.
jerk.

..and when we're dead(and we'll be dead),
we'll have our eternity.
and i will spend it all
missing you
and you and me

i havent been on here in awhile, which is probably a good thing. we have no more working computers or tv in the house. you would think i would get so much work done that way: drawing, reading classics, writing novellas; but alas. it's a slow climb.
so we are, what, a third of the way through lent? so far i have found out i am socially inept, and have a million things locked up. not much progress really. if anything i am far more unhapy when not drinking, because i cant exist as a person who talks to other persons well. i have been so haunted the last several days, it was the full moon and all, and now that it's past i am feeling a bit better. It's strange how that works. maybe it's all in my mind? i think i've asked that before... and always say 'duh.' but it doesnt matter where it is if it's real, huh?
im going to california in may for awhile, job or no job, money or no money, friends or no friends. i am interested in breaking the cycle - what happens if i'm not dating anyone when i go there? i cant break up with anyone then, maybe i'll just die instead? the world is my oyster! anyway. that will be fun.
this month is going fast. this week would have normally been spring break, me and adam getting in a car and driving somewhere new and warm.
so, in conclusion, sorry if ive been grumpy lately, i am learning something important, or maybe i just am that way usually.

imma post some art now.

the best

http://www.bombombombomwooooo.com/

day 1

ash wednesday was today. I dont think youre supposed to say 'happy ash wednesday!' ...I have begun to abstain from alcohol, and it was fairly simple for the day at least. the point is that when you want the thing you cant have, you direct that energy to God instead. there has been noone else but me in the house for 30-36 hours now. luckily i did go out for a time to watch a show i had no idea what the hell was going on and didnt care (lost) and another show which was largely disappointing (top chef). and there was chicken wings. but now im back. i am feeling strange.
last nite a good reason for not drinking presented itself - i had totally misplaced a hilarious memory of mine from new orleans. I actually needed to be reminded that i was paid $100 to go into a shemale strip club and have a drink. seriously. i have trained my brain exceedingly well at blocking things out. oh, come on, it was just a drink. you would do the same thing. i have the disposition that makes me want to experience everything, which leads me to my next point -
i found out today that i am the reincarnation of soren kierkegaard. here's why:

"i dont feel like doing anything. I dont feel like walking - it is tiring. i dont feel like lying down, for either i would lie down for a long time, and i dont feel like doing that, or i would get up right away, and i dont feel like that either - i dont feel like riding - the motion is too vigorous for my apathy; i dont feel like doing anything except just taking a drive; indolently, smoothly undulating along, letting objects in abundance glide by, pausing at every beautiful spot merely to feel my listlessness - my ideas and impulses are just as barren as a eunuch's desire. I seek in vain for something to stimulate me... now I really feel the meaning of the expression about Christ's words that they are life and spirit. To be brief: I do not feel like writing what I have written here, and i do not feel like erasing it either.
...all i am qualified to do is to converse with crazy people and to offer them my hand
...i divide my time as follows. One half I sleep; the other half i dream.
..I could almost be tempted to explain the contradictions moving within me by supposing that i am an irishman. For the irish do not have the heart to immerse their children totally when they have them baptized; they want to keep a little paganism in reserve. Generally the child is totally immersed, but they leave the right arm free, so that he will be able to wield a sword with it, embrace the girls"

love him. heres one last quote/food for thought - 'Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. We never find out the strength of an evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it; and Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist.' CS Lewis

anybody want to come over? you should. i am lonely as hell and will be reading on the couch for hours because my sleep is completely off. i prefer pretty girls who like to snuggle, just for the record.

only 3 words can describe my feeling for this, and they are 'what the fuck???'

getting ready

best caption with this - "went in. was great."

"there exists fortunate creatures who have such a decided inclination in a particular direction that they follow the path once it is laid out for them without ever falling prey to the thought that perhaps they ought to have followed an entirely different path. There are others who let themselves be influenced so completely by their surroundings that it never becomes clear to them in what direction they are really striving... Perhaps it is my misfortune in life that I am interested in far too many things rather than definitely in any one thing. My interests are not all subordinated to one but are all coordinate...life has always interested me most, and it has always been my desire to clarify and solve the riddle of life.
...I prefer to talk with old women who chatter about their families, next with demented people - and lastly with very sensible people." (kierkegaard, either/or)

"No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. Only those who resist temptation know how strong it is.... and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist." CS Lewis

its monday. im studying lent for cell. i plan on giving up alcohol for 40 days (technically 46). I have serious doubts about this actually coming true. I find myself in a familiar place, hopefully with new eyes and better choices to be made than the last time. I have only ever felt the way I did.

another saturday night, and i aint got etc etc

i almost fell off my ladder today. i had to jump. and burn my hand slightly on the rope. well, i didnt have to do that. tonight i was a game show host for the newlywed game at a corporate party. i have never been a game show host, but have always thought i would be good at it. fact. it was good. then i raced to another place where i sang in a chorus for a band who my roommate belongs to. i have never been a singer in a band, but have always thought i would be good at that too. after an hour of driving, i am now here. i would like to now transcribe this page i wrote earlier, omitting anything that sounds poor as i go. marshmallow mateys.

What does the knowledge of it do for your own action? If we know in our heart that we, ourself, is fallible; incapable of loving fully, incapable of being God, why then do we continue on trying as if we think we will break the mold? Trying is the best to hope for. Everyone is forgotten in time. There are people who just seem(ed) to know something everyone else didn't, how to put the pieces together simply while appearing complex, to write a melody that reaches inside. But we can avert our our eyes, shut our ears, we cannot be reached unless we choose to be. Sometimes I wish I had a God that would force me to know Him. But then i dont. I wonder how it could be that even if i had God by my side, a pure example of love and what to emulate, how i could still find it in myself to turn away and look for something for myself. I know that I would. So what does knowing do for me? Does it change my course of action, do i try harder than anyone else ever has? Okay, why not?
NOw by no means do i mean to stop. It's difficult to pursue things in your life if you over think it. We are constantly being who we are, and we can constantly change that direction and pursue something new. I am not held down, pinned by any choice I ever made (certainly some choices if made would bring some moral/judicial ramifications). Is this freedom? Do we already have what we want but fail to see it? So many people around the world are literally chained down by the evils of their country, their neighbors, their inheritance, their poverty, and are unable to feel like they can break away. I weep for that. And what of the message i cling to - that love will pave the way, true love is a thing worth dying for, the source of madness is the lack of it. Well, maybe not. It's foolish. And yet it pins down so many artists, musicians, poets... or okay all of them. What we really want is to be understood, to be happy on our own terms, get the things we want through luck and beguilement, perhaps a bit of merit. Could it be that the wealth of feelings, the lines of prose, all lead to an end result of not-good-enough? Is that where the misery comes from? How can you know what will happen before the end? How can you know what will save your soul (if you believe in these things) before the end, before it's happened? Yeah. You can't.
There are these feelings of pleasure, happiness, assurety (which apparently isn't a word), anxiety, misery, worry - and we put them together with experiences and words attached and follow them as road signs in our life. I try to remember some time long ago when I was absolutely sure about one thing or another, and what it took to achieve that. Now I feel like i've crossed the line again, into my usual and comfortable self worship, love worship; that any time spent thinking leads me away from God and deep into myself. A 180 degree turn is always necessary. A new mindset. How poor that is. And what does it help? I could do any great thing in the world completely devoid of God (to me), and He could still take it for His glory and use it as best He could for His kingdom. Do I miss out on the high five from God if I am A) not aware of my motives or b) doing good things for no real reason except to do them? There it goes again, me getting all full of myself. Pride is weird because it makes alot of sense. God doesn't belong in a box that I make for Him to be in. There is so much going on. I want to see it all happen and know it and then see what I do then. Something is off-putting about the old addage that you should do everything you do for God and that that will be able to verify life in that way. I guess I am just not very good at doing this.
...Maybe deep down inside, we all know we're just masturbating the day away; but it feels pretty good most of the time. Except for that time when you come down.

http://www.cracked.com/article_17039_9-real-life-mad-scientists.html

a good way to start the day.

To Say Before Going to Sleep

I would like to sing someone to sleep,
have someone to sit by and be with.
I would like to cradle you and softly sing,
be your companion while you sleep or wake.
I would like to be the only person
in the house who knew: the night outside was cold.
And would like to listen to you
and outside to the world and to the woods.

The clocks are striking, calling to each other,
and one can see right to the edge of time.
Outside the house a strange man is afoot
and a strange dog barks, wakened from his sleep.
Beyond that there is silence.

My eyes rest upon your face wide-open;
and they hold you gently, letting you go
when something in the dark begins to move.
(rainer maria rilke)

happy valentines

sometimes i wonder if maybe everyone is whistling along with my tune and i can feel that out here and away
somehow there's more to it all

"many people who appear physically in the actual world are not at home in it but are at home in that other world...

The image i have of her hovers indefinitely somewhere between her actual and her ideal form.
what pleasure is there in love if absolute abandon is not intrinsic
to it?

die eine ist verliebt gar sehr
die eine vare es gerne"

(from seducers diary, comic credit jeff kilpatrick)

i laughed, i cried, i made pukes. instant classic.
my only rebuttal is this - i never, ever want to live in a world where everything makes perfect sense; i always want to live in a place where things can be better than any imagination, because God knows i dont want to believe this is all that there is.

reading!

"when we did see each other, we were so bashful, so modest, that we were much farther apart than when we did not see each other. Then when we were apart again and the unpleasantness of this mutual uneasiness was forgotten, our having seen each other acquired it's full significance; then in our dreams we began exactly where we had stopped. So it was at least with me.

every person who has a fixed idea is a virtuoso on one string."

some music

...the reason it will be okay if i never become a singer/songwriter (i dont plan on being one), because kevin devine does it just fine for me

http://www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-song-hold-steady-cover-springsteen

the hold steady doing atlantic city. a no brainer, and pretty good.

http://aolradio.podcast.aol.com/aolmusic/mp3s/Manchester_Orchestra_Ive_Got_Friends.mp3

new manchester song.

http://www.myspace.com/thirdeyeblind

new third eye blind ep out. sorry, i cant stop thinking they are the best. maybe they lost their edge, we'll see.

heres what i worked on once.

i was reading my ticket stubs from 10 years ago today and i remembered some things that i can no longer remember happened at all. like for instance, remember when i got caught for shoplifting? hilarious. apparently i liked some pretty crazy things. kids, if you're out there, keep track of everything you do, because if you dont, you will not remember any of it. also, drinking only speeds up the process. BEWARE!!!!
you can only teach what you know. you know?

this is all for today

ill give you some paintings tomorrow, maybe. it is a busy day.

up, then down, but then up,

a good music to drive home at nite with is basia bulat.
i feel saintly because i dj'ed a fundraiser for special needs children who then got enough money to go to france. we danced so much that my feet will shout out when i take these fancy shoes off. being able to come into a house at 2 am and have an olive stuffed with garlic and some leftover alfredo, and then have it be your house so you can sleep in a minute, this is wonderful. i did a very quiet, dimly lit dance regarding it. i dont want to wake trenton doyle hancock.
if there was a recipe that could be repeated that would make me feel the way i do right now all of the time, that would be the bees nees. meaning it would be cool, not that the recipe would be called bees nees.

..how do you spell bees nees?

just click it. you will love it

i always get afraid when i smell burning rubber, because i think im going to have a seizure. this has no grounds in reality though.
in a related note, my favorite part of today was when at the car show, me and my brother (who is 43) both started playing air guitar to metallica at the same time.

tuesday

ah, a snowy day.
we never said that all of these things weren't following us around
but we forgot to mention, assumed that you knew
the pain and the past are only there
if we stop and turn around

i went through a book i used to write in the other nite, found about 3 things that made me say 'huh.' the rest of it made me realize i am not very good at writing, that i am very melodramatic. big surprise, i know. i think there is alot of things that i like (musically especially) that are sugary sweet and mostly terrible, but i love them anyway. i have come to terms, i won't apologize. but i will keep it a secret how much i like fall out boy, and how the counting crows are my favorite band ever.
i saw antony and the johnsons last nite. he was great. i also saw the movie 'the holy mountain' last nite, which was so insane we had to pause it and just laugh for a few minutes. I miss laughing like a little kid, im trying to make things more hilarious for everyone. I think it is my job to be upbeat and happy, and that i do a bad job. it's weird how some people totally get you and your brand of humor and how other people just look at you confused. it's weird how people do things. im going to write a letter to the paint chip company and see if they will be my patron, or at least send me free stuff. i have a new painting i need to post. its snowing, and i have not gone outside yet. someone called me a lucky dog today. i will roast some potatoes. on groundhogs day john runyan came out of a hole and saw his shadow, so the snowing is right on schedule. the news told me.

if you own nothing, noone can take anything away
(it belongs to someone else anyway)

the songs still sound as good

whatev

thursday

Long ago, people would look in the sky and see stars and the moon, and not know what it was they were looking at. They could only wonder at light in the dark, draw shapes, find their way using mysteries.
Lately I've had some bad dreams, where all the things i worry about are happening to me - Like a girl i like tells me i'm always being too serious, my house burns down, someone tells me i am the reason for them dying, i cut my hair, and, of course, sexual family terribleness.
I wake up and feel old. Resolve to not drink anymore. This one tastes skunky anyway.
I told my life story at a meeting the other day. If anything I remembered some things along the way. It's so unnerving to know that your specific life and feelings and day to day cant ever be shared with anyone else. No matter how closely I document myself, noone will ever be able to know what it was like to be me, and i will never know how it was like to be anyone else. I've been learning more and more to be comfortable in my own skin, and to be good at being alone, even if it's not the way i would choose to be. I was sad to think that if i dont remember my childhood, noone is going to be able to tell me what it was like, so many days i've put away, literally trying to forget things by destroying them, and hey, it worked. You can only feel the way you do when you do, and it will be convincing enough at the time to forego any foresight. At any rate, i dont count anything as a nightmare anymore.
I've spent some time with some people who help me feel at ease, relax and forget about putting on shows or masks. I would stay there all day if i didn't think i would overstay my welcome.
I play 'real love' by the beatles and 'last night i dreamt somebody loved me' by the smiths on the guitar everytime i pick it up.
Just because i know what stars are, i dont want to stop being curious, making shapes, and being amazed.

okay

so, when i think my thoughts are lucid at 6 am, they are mostly not.
time though, if it is a flow, is not something that our mind can really grasp, because we only see moments, and things from the past are not there for us to see, only memories,which are arguably incredibly fallible (esp. if you fall and hit your head, or liquor up too often, both of which occur in this household on a saturday nite (but not to me)). But we do know that things did occur before us, and that things did happen to us before that are not happening now. ... here, let me just quote the book
"units of time are only the artificial segments into which the analytic intellect slices what in reality is a continuous flow... the intellect is capable of comprehending static parts, it is incapable of grasping movement or duration.
If it is true that one cannot step into the same river twice, it is also true that no person can think the same way twice, because after each experience he or she is a different person."
This is kind of nice then, because sometimes i am pretty sure my life is on repeat, playing a cycle that lasts around 3 or 4 years. Maybe this is because I have not yet learned the thing i was supposed to learn the first time around, maybe it's just because that's the way my life is, and I better get used to it. I am trying to break the cycle, invite some new players besides the usual ones (they grow up like weeds!(i say that in a 'i still love them' kind of way)).
We were talking in church about the things that we are able to give, the things we need to put out 'on front street' (this phrase caught on way too well, and was, slightly, retarded). I have been feeling like I do not do enough, and am trying to remedy the situation. I think the thing I am most wealthy in is free time, time, time, and more time. I dont have alot of other skills. These people talk circles around me. But i have alot of spare time to spend doing stuff for people. So i will use that better, because it is a gift. As for the front street stuff, thats not for a blog to handle, or for really most people to handle. We will see about accountability partners or counseling or whatever.
It's a waste of time to think about decisions that were already made, whether they were right or not, because its done now. i am feeling okay. i dont want to choose to be a sad person, even if sadness chooses me (it hasn't, yet). you dont help, but i cant help this

time

here we are at the end. it's what.....5:30 in the morning, on a sunday, and i feel alive tonite, right now. I was reading about the flow of time and how any memory needs to be placed into the flow of everything that is happening simultaneously, how everything changes all the time, and how your mind can't even know about all the changes because we just break everything down into instant moments that we knew and saw in our own lives. I'm okay with that, as long as the memories i get to keep are there as long as i am able to have them.
when you combine certain people with certain music, then you start to feel certain things. I've been trying to focus so hard on relating to everyone i know, to make peace in this world. I don't know where i am these days. In time, there was a flow, a wide eternal flow that i was placed in, and the people that i meet in those times and places, the people that i connected with were there, at the same time, and we shared something special. and that is amazing. I am grateful for those who were really there with me, though i know everyone else was there too, only some few people made a connection and it's not a fault of mine that these are my lifeline. how strange. what makes the people i know the people who i share my life with, those who i share secrets with, what makes me trust who i do? why cant i love anyone who i want? im not complaining, just wondering, and certainly not fighting against the things i feel ever so strongly these days, in all the wrong places. i trust myself, usually, even though it's madness.
i ran a fog machine tonite. it's almost 6 now. i think i will not sleep, who cares? the sun comes up and it is just another day, where we will run around, be dead, be alive, be in love, make love, throw away things we cant keep anymore, save something we hope will remind us of something we used to love, and we hope we can love like that again.
I am a huge fan of finding your own way. I could push you in the direction i think you should go, but i know it means nothing until you make it happen; we are all one person, one set of choices, who will we be decide to be, what is our favorite song, what kind of girl do we find the prettiest? I can't fight the things that made me who i am, only try to know it and to make it work, and feel good about it. This is not right or wrong. God is here, showing me around the way life could be. i dont know where the 'should be' comes in.

in my heart i wanted more

its been a wild week. i saw a fire, painted in kensington high school, i sold 2 paintings to a man, went on a sobriety binge, saw a new man become president, celebrated megins birthday, applied to become a sperm donor (still filling out the second wave of application), got a raise as a dj, had way too many serious conversations (still wanting more). it's only thursday. this one will go down in the books.

insanity (aka dave wastes a day on the internet)

http://www.yhchang.com/
go to this site first, and watch these great videos, particularly

then, watch this because its too much. stick it out until around 4 minutes in, the pay off is huge

something new

heres a new painting. im still waiting for someone to offer me alot of money for it.
i had alot of fun making this.

for now

new pictures up later today, question mark.






http://www.adultswim.com/video/index.html?section=Other&collectionID=8a2505951d1a2751011d261779af007d