Things to talk about are fucking piling up.
I have a rare (fake) form of OCD (procrastination) where I can’t do anything at all until I finish watching as much as is currently available of whatever show I am currently obsessed with.
Right now it’s Skins. It’s on Netflix Watch Instantly. Welcome to the place where all productivity goes to die.
At least for as long as it takes to watch 2 seasons.

Also, I did it, just like I said.

A Collaborative Effort

Names Mean A Lot
By Courtney Davison & Andrew Susser

Sure, there was more to be said, but the gridlock in front of the tunnel occupied his concentration. He knew it would be another fifteen minutes before they would enter the mouth of the tunnel, but he did not have fifteen minutes worth of things to say. The cars around them were mostly reflecting their own light as dusk strained dull colors into the day’s overcast sky. Remarking on this simple beauty crossed his mind, fast, like seedy toilet stalls planted in the highway gravel, disappearing behind you into the annals of another’s history. “Do you still want to go to Kate’s when we get home,” he asked in an unnerving voice that seemed directed more towards the traffic than to her. “No, I don’t think so,” the words inched out of her mouth, as the car inched forward. Their common febrility, vacant from their faces, seeded itself in their arms and legs. “Well then,” he began, the yolk of patience, linked to generations of concrete and silent men, almost visible around his neck, “we won’t go to Kate’s.” She took in a deep breath and muttered “so,” followed by “um,” which inevitably led to “never mind,” and another failed attempt to move the conversation in a new direction. And so the hour passed, until home, marked by the inhalation of four cigarettes, and the tapping of fingernails on
plastic. The phone was ringing inside but they were weighed down with luggage. Shuffling their keys, they could hear the cats scratching the door, and the answer machine utter, “You’ve reached Jon and Maggie, leave a message,” in Maggie’s sunny
voice.

It’s a mans mans mans mans work

Bob, my fianceé and comic book writer/illustrator extraordinaire has redone the cover of Batman Detective Comics #184, DC 1952, and his work is currently appearing on a lovely little blog called Covered, which features a multitude of artists covering, well, comic book covers.
Check it out here!

I had a dream that I was at my grandfather’s funeral. Brian Bitner was there for some reason, and asked me why I was crying, as we hugged right in front of the open casket.

A customer at work had a dream that a funeral procession of only yellow taxis was keeping her from getting to work. There were bananas everywhere.

Minneapolis graffiti update:

This is worded poorly, but seriously I feel strongly about things

Today confirmed something I’ve known all along: I find the word “brave” to be extremely moving.

I don’t mean in terms of soldiers going to war, although I have my own song-based thoughts on that
(10 Track 10
and
I Hate Myself: To A Husband At War)

Although the act of going to fight for something that one believes in (if pure of heart) is brave, it just isn’t the kind of brave that makes me cry.

Children and animals being brave, or more precisely being TOLD to be brave makes my chest tighten up, and my jaw clench.

Wolf Parade- I’ll Believe In Anything

Although I guarantee that the song isn’t about anything near to what I am about to imagine for you, the story I’ve invented for the song makes the song one of my favorites ever, and I cry almost every time I hear it.
To me, the song is about two animals in love, who decide to disguise themselves as humans. They wear human clothes, and walk on two legs, and fall prey to all the pitfalls that trying to be a human presents.
(God, just thinking about it makes me start to cry.)
Some problems they face during their adventure are their exhibited naivety in the face of their decision to try to be human (hence the admission of the narrator to believe in anything, said with a twinge of remorse), and their ignorance of the human world (I imagine “If I could get the fire out from the wire,” to mean that they are trapped in a pen with an electric fence, having been caught and exposed as being animals and not human).

But, because the song takes place after their tragic adventure, the animal narrating the poem is at once jaded and resilient, having learned a few sad lessons about humanity, and at the same time trying to stay positive for his companion, “We’ve both been very brave, walk around with both legs. Fight the scary day. We both pull the tricks out of our sleeves.”

God, it’s just so beautiful, and sad.

Did I just write fanfic based on a song?

I don’t know what it is about being brave in the face of adversity that I find so beautiful, especially with regards to something so innocent as an animal or a child. There is no way that they can understand what exactly it means to be brave, but just imagining a kid/animal puffing out his chest and thinking of his heroes and putting on a strong face in a crisis is the most poignant. Ever.

Things that don’t matter

I like it when TV shows and movies make me cry. My dad loves to watch the saddest movies in the world. I once asked him why and he said it’s a way to practice your emotions in case any of those sad things happen in the real world.

I get really frustrated when customers order a drink but don’t indicate what size they want. When I ask, “What size?” they often step back and have to reconsider as if they have never conceived of different sizes for drinks.

A young law student and I were talking at the shop and I gave him advice that ended with “But, then again, I’m just a barista,” as in “Who am I to you?” But he looked at me and said, “Sure, but you’ve got your own narrative.”
I can’t stop thinking about that moment, with anger.

The way I feel reminds me of something I posted on an old blog (back in 2006) and it makes me worry that I haven’t changed all that much. Remind me that becoming a human is a slow process, please:

when i got home tonight, i cracked open a beer like i figure a lumberjack might, after a long day of lumberjacking around, which i can only assume- atleast by the feel of the phrase in my brain- is hard work. even though apparently what i do “isn’t really work,” according to atleast one customer today. although, i might rebute that, to a lumberjack, sitting around staring at a computer screen isn’t REALLY work either. infact, i think the lumberjack may assume that the hardest part about a job like that is getting the dang tie knot tied straight, or at all.
the first swig of the beer felt better than a lot of things have felt lately, atleast physically, by my self.
come to think about it, solo physicallity has limited exhiliration after the age of ten. before the cushion of childhood wains, things like jump roping, swinging at the playground, trampolines, running around in a field at dusk, tree climbing evoke such an unlimited feeling of bodily freedom. perhaps it has to do with a certain lack of physical sense. i suppose this means that children are completely ethereal. hmm.
“grown ups” experience this feeling differently, and mostly with regards to someone else…as in sex.
the only solo physicallity comes with things like speeding (car, bike, rollercoaster, whatever), while intoxicated, or of course during masturbation.

maybe i’m headed in the wrong direction here.

the beer. it’s flying dog. and, although i was at the bar itself once, with dusty, before i was 21…before i was 19, before a lot of things happened, it evokes no iota of nostalga. it’s just a beer. indeed i do feel a bit superior, having been to the brewery, having some tie in some small way to ralph steadman, hunter s. thompson, and in some sort of radical retrograded way, the 70’s. this one beer connects me to decades of history.

my point is that my work is work. it’s hard work. i talk to 300 people everyday, and work ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
i’ve been heading up various projects, and participating in everything…so much so that the highschool me would fucking call me a cunt, and spit all over my shirt.

My own narrative…………

Pictures of Dead Things

Early on in the blog I had mentioned that I wished I had a camera on me at all times so I could take pictures of all the dead things I see.
This already brings me to a tangential point.

I never went to sleepaway camp. I don’t really know why. I don’t see how it wouldn’t have benefitted my mom to have me out of her hair all the time. Maybe it was money. I went to a shitty YMCA summer day camp for a few summers, and then to the Overlook summer camp for a few years, where there was a roller rink and a swimming pool. I ate seltzer bologna sandwiches that had the mustard put on in star or heart patterns. I one time fell into line with a group of amoral 10 year olds and tricked the change machine in the arcade with a fake dollar. Once caught, we had to apologize to the owner of Overlook and each pay our quarter back. Maybe there was a time-out in order to pay back the time spent playing video games.
One of these summers, however, the YMCA was offering a special trip to sleepaway camp for the day campers. It was like a preview, or a marketing ploy to show the day campers’ parents how great, and full of partying their summers could be, too.
I was permitted to go.
I slept on the top bunk in a cabin, curled up in the 90 degree, Pennsylvania forest summer at the bottom of my sleeping bag for fear of a spider letting itself down from the dark rafters directly onto my face, and up my nose, or into my mouth, or down my shirt, or fortheloveofallthingsholy into my underpants.
I learned how to play pool, how to do a line dance to Run Around Sue, and that if you put your elbows on the table at sleepaway camp someone would point it out loudly, and everyone would sing a song while you had to march around the table, a mealtime outcast.
Above all, I learned what the inside of a frog looked like.
It was common to catch small animals down at the creek (or, crick depending on where you come from), and bring them back to main camp. We would catch salamanders, little minnows, tadpoles, and tiny tiny tiny frogs, bring them back to camp in a plastic cup terrarium and then let them go the next day.
A kid, some kid, Marcus maybe? once brought to main camp the tiniest frog I’ve ever seen, held in his hands by the hollow globe of his two hands curled delicately together, to show it off as being the tiniest frog anyone had caught that year at sleepaway camp. Because Marcus was small himself, like the frog, he could jump higher than anyone I had ever met, and used this skill to further make a scene out of his frog discovery by putting on a jumping show when he’d let his audience hold the tiny frog himself.
I don’t remember who did it, but one member of Marcus’ audience was holding the teeny frog, and Marcus was putting on his jumping show, and someone pushed him while he was in the air. At the same time the tiny frog got loose, and Marcus landed on the ground, on top of the frog.
It was awful, and disgusting, and Marcus cried, and I saw the inside of a frog.

I see a lot of dead things in general, not because I’m looking for them, but because I notice a lot of small details in the open world (never at work, or while reading) and spend a lot of time looking around at every part of outside, when I am outside.
There are dead things everywhere. Especially bees. Almost always bees. I hear news stories about all the honeybees dying, and I swear I see more dead bees all over the ground than anything else.

A few days ago I noticed a dead bird, likely the victim of a cat attack, lying on top of the snow. It wasn’t until yesterday that I got over to take a photo of it. I was pretty surprised that it was still there. Maybe I was expecting the homeowner to edit nature, as it’s pretty gruesome looking, but who wants to pick up a dead bird?

So, back to my big talk early in the blog about posting pictures of dead things:
Bob and I had a pretty heated talk about the place of photography in the world. He brought up some good points about how even with out a documentarian photographer the object in the world would still be there. I felt that the role of the photographer in bringing images to the public of things that are existing out side of the viewers immediate world is still an artful one…but now I am not so sure.
You can be guaranteed that at any given time there is something dead somewhere. If you’ve seen roadkill, you’ve seen something dead. That memory can serve as a place holder, as a stand-in for the thoughtless imagination that happens while hearing a story of something dying. (It doesn’t have to be something dying. It could be anything. If I hear a story about a beautiful girl who I don’t know, while my mind is setting about imagining the story I am hearing, I will automatically think of the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, and she will stand-in for the girl in the story who I have never seen.)
I guess, then, that it is my hope that although this photo is gruesome, and in no way artful
(after I took the photo I was rather disenchanted with the whole idea of taking pictures of dead things, as it felt exploitative, and not as amazing in documentation as it was to just stumble upon accidentally) you will use this photo in your memory as a stand in for all things dead when you hear about them in stories.
When you hear about blood on snow, when you hear even the term “ruffled feathers,” when you imagine broken bones, or loss of life, this will be your imagination.
Late caveat: I’m not an artist.

Death and another day

I have important things to write about.
Every time someone dies, I have this terrible feeling that I don’t have a right to be upset. I’m not close enough to the tragedy, and therefore my emotions must be disingenuous. I know it’s not a correct assumption. It’s OK, absolutely, no matter who or where you are, to be upset about another human dying. But, I just can’t shake it the feeling that if I were to sit around and cry all day about it, I’d just be acting all dramatic.
Death gets dealt with in a multitude of ways.
Having said that, the death of my former boss this week, Jack Hall, has made me feel a whole host of emotions that I haven’t felt in a long time. Maybe ever.
Some people are surrounded by death early on. I don’t have a lot of experience with the death of people who I care about. Jack’s death was unexpected, and sad. I’m not in Philly to grieve with everyone, or to go to the funeral. Instead, I’m just wandering around Minneapolis mumbling about how my old boss died, and it hardly means anything to anyone.
He was a nice guy with a predilection towards the art of telling dirty jokes. He was a mumble mouth, and ate poorly. But he was a swell guy, who loved his wife and cared about his daughter. He gave me an awesome job, and helped me to succeed at that job in a way that bosses rarely, if ever, do. One day I didn’t show up to open the store, and he was going to come to my house with another employee to make sure I wasn’t hurt, or sick, or in trouble, because he knew that showing up late was something I wouldn’t ever do on purpose.
Who does that?
Someone awesome.

He died, and all I want to do is go on and on about how when I left Philly, everyone blinked out of my life. I’ll never see some people again, and it’s like they are dead. But they aren’t. I don’t see them, I just imagine the lives they are leading, like the grieving in denial.

At work I made drinks and thought about dying. How afraid I am of it. Not because I’d feel like I hadn’t left enough behind, but because everyone goes alone.
And how it’s like you’re living, and living, and then you are dead. It sounds like a contradiction, but it’s seems to me that it’s as if you are jerked awake. You’re sleeping, and dreaming, and then you’re awake. It’s got to be confusing. And maybe similar to how a dream seems so clear and obvious while it’s happening, when you wake up nothing about the dream makes sense. You live and things make sense, then you die and look back, and nothing seems so clear.

How could I ever know. Much less report back.

I had an earache last night.
Then, I dreamt that while hanging out with two of my former TA’s in my bed (not in a sexy way) one of them took a swig of Ipecac, looked me right in the eye and started to projectile vomit all over the place.
When I woke up this morning, I overheard Bob sleep talking.
“Eating peanut butter off my fingers,” he said.

Nerd Lines, Good Times

Bob taught me how to love a good nerd line. Luckily there has been no shortage of them here in Minneapolis. Just yesterday we went to gawk at a super sweet nerd line for the WWE Raw jamboree hosted by Mike Tyson. Because of the weather being so frigid, and the skyways being so numerous, there were hallways upon hallways of bellies, signs, and championship belts.

Actually, a lot of people wouldn’t let me take their picture, no matter how many stories I told. I even had to promise to some people that the photos wouldn’t end up on The Myspace. The thing is that nerd lines, while full of “nerds” are also full of fanatics and people who are truly passionate about what they are waiting in a gargantuan line to view. For that reason, I don’t feel badly about giving them a gentle ribbing. They’re having fun, I’m having fun, and we all should get along.
So, many thanks go out to that one kind stranger and his double-sided double signs, who allowed me to take not one, but two pictures of him. You truly are a king among men.

Outside of the tunnels of wrestling fans there was a dude preaching about God. In particular he was preaching to the guy across the street that was scalping tickets, and addressing him as “Mr. Ticket Scalper.” A policeman overheard and came over to give the scalper a ticket. What a freaking narc. Then he pretended not to notice the scalper getting hassled.

On the walk to the Target Center we saw a bunch of food on the ground. Not in the same place.
The bananas I thought were dog poop at first, but then they were bananas. I took a picture of them because they were frozen bananas under the freeway. But, apparently a passerby had the same first thought as I did, and frowned at me because he thought I was taking a picture of crap. Luckily, Bob decided to shout at him, “Don’t worry Sir, it’s not poop, it’s just bananas.”
That was a close one?

Along for the pseudo-photo-blogging ride are just some other cold weather images, and some photos from the beginning of my winter time photo series Snow, or Faux?

Snow, or Faux?

Snow, or Faux?

Snow, or Faux?

Snow, or Faux?