Wednesday

First & Last

This is file DSC_0001.jpg, the first shot with my new rig. Unretouched and just shrunken like a cannibal head for the interwebs. I get sentimental like that about my equipment when really I shouldn't [clicky] [clicky]. But this is the first shot with the Nikon D90 I received from very nice people for Christmas. Thanks, everybody (and I was wrong about the batteries)! There you have it.


It's also the last shot of the B for these Web logs. It's just not a thing for her anymore although she'll probably (still) be my #1 partner in Web crime [clicky]. She can do her own thing if she wants to be on the interwebs. This also the last posting of 2008. There will be stories though.

Unsurprisingly I get sentimental about my child but it is surprising how sentimental I get about the silly change of a year and retarded blogs. Just another day, right? But here we are or whatever.

To focus in I must pull back. Sentiment be damned.
Time to move forward
Without new manifestos
Shut up make your arts

Historical manifestos [clicky 1] [clicky 2]
Goodbye 2008. I love you and all but you're a huge loser now. I'm over you. See ya' and fuck off too.

Hello 2009 and different shit including So American, probably some audio, probably some poetry, and other mayhem. We'll see what happens, right? No promises. No guarantees.

Let's ride this horse until it drops, Pony Express style!

From Middlespace West (Day 6)

Here we go-Day 6

"Sometimes I'll listen to Cosa Angeles or The Floods of Lexington Pacheco [clicky] and hear something, perhaps an entire track on a song, and not remember recording it or thinking of it or making the decision to include it.

That makes sense. I did those things years ago.

I'm listening to things I recorded 3 days ago and there are tracks on songs I don't remember recording."

-RP

Welcome to my life, ese. If it weren't for The Interweb Blogs, I'd have no idea I did what yesterday. The Blogs are basically my very own screenplay journals. And people, some people, happen to read that nonsense for better or worse (which is just weird). Anyway....

The Flow is an amazing thing, my dear friend. And it does sometime leave one in blackout from the processes and minutiae. Been there. We talk about revisiting things after The Long Wake and finding wonderment but sometimes that wake can be mere days or hours. I hear you.

I was just telling my spouse yesterday, "Shit, I can't even remember the title of my last album or even the order of my last five." If I were under gunpoint or Cheney torture, I could not tell you the track listings from my own [here I actually had to open a Firefox tab and check the web] The Modicum of Decorum or even Free Milk Seminar.

But, yeah, that's The Flow, son. Ride that shit out!

-ty

---------------------------------
Here we go thread [clicky]
WTF? Contact: rpwalk[at]gmail[dot]com

2009 Rules #3 & 4 (Parts of The Plan)

2009 -- Year of The Plan

#3 - Remember the old rules and keep them holy: [clicky], [clicky], and [clicky]

#4 - Abandon video [clicky] and cherish poetry [clicky]

-----------------
The Plan: [clicky]

Tuesday

2009 Photo Project Request #1

Dear Ty:

Would you please consider doing a photo-essay, study, project, contemplation, dialogue, epic, prolapsed, time-lapsed, visual consideration on the following phrase:

Sooo American. (or simply: That's So American.) As in "That's sooooo American."

At this point in history that could be sooooooo many things, and I feel like you have a fantastic way of peeling the onion of truth in ways most of us might not consider.

Thanks,

You're the beast.

PBG (AKA Philly Boy Gabe)

Now that fits The Plan. See how this works? It took Philly Gabe (the single reason I started Web logging almost seven years ago in the first place) to activate Wonder Twin powers. Gabe gets it.

Will do, Philly Boy Gabe. Will do.

-----------------
The Plan: [clicky]

2009 Rules #1 & 2 (Parts of The Plan)

Thomas' Plateau Busters for Ty

Ty,

You are the greatest photographer I know, but in 2009:
#1 - NO photos of family or friends.

#2 - You may post only one photo each day.
Good luck with that!

:) Thomas
-----------------
The Plan: [clicky]

Cousin Dan of the Crick

From Middlespace West (Day 5)

Here we go-Day 5

1) Broke a string, like a chicken wing. No work today, amigro.

2) I'm jizzing my pants over Hydroponic Chronic. I ordered a 16x20 print off of Ofoto. Do you have a higher resolution version?

3) I can't remember what else.

-RP

1) Just like the Jesus said (not the Jesus but "hey-zeus" at the auto repair shop), "Day 5 is for resting, ese."

2) Yes I do have a higher resolution version. Just so you all know, I only post pictures on the WWW that will print shitty, on purpose. One shouldn't try to print images from my Web sites. 16 x 20? No way, ain't going to happen. They're shrunken like cannibal heads and compressed to one hair of their lives.

Let me know and I'll make you up a high-res file or, since I'm full of the homo love for you, I'll even print one for you if you want. Seriously. Image setup for World Wide Web site postings and for image setup for printing (good printing) are two very different things. Besides, I'm an American Businessman Patriot. I ain't putting all that shit up there for free for everybody to make big ass posters.

I'm on the road today. Remind me tomorrow (and that's not a brush off, you know me I'll forget I ever offered, so I'll need an actual reminder) and I'll set up a file for you to have printed.

3) I can't remember what else either.

-ty

---------------------------------
Here we go thread [clicky]
WTF? Contact: rpwalk[at]gmail[dot]com

Monday

Hydroponic Chronic


"And [a friend's daughter] thinks the two patches of snow by the water's edge look like eyes, monster eyes, and she has been looking at it and telling stories about all the things the monster is doing in the picture this evening. He likes to drink the water coming out of the building, but does not like to be wet, but is clumsy and keeps falling in."

But it's a good and nice monster; protecting the water for all the townspeople and puppies and such.

L'il Richey's Shop of Guitar Repairs

The Backlog Three

Grandmother - Granddaughter

Sunday

From Middlespace West (Day 4)

Here we go-Day 4

"Ty, you know the feeling."

Yes, Rickey I do know the feeling. It seems to be my permanent state the last decade or so. It's just the way I feel anymore. You too will suffer else you are doing something terribly wrong. And as much as you suffer and question and plan how to give up without looking as if you've quit on yourself, you will not even get to appreciate your efforts for at least three to five years. So you better make good shit so that in 2013 you can feel some pride and joy.

Gifts for your future require hard ass work in your present.

Just sayin'. Enjoy.

-ty

P.S. No afterlife with virgins and wings and halos and shit either.
---------------------------------
Here we go thread [clicky]
WTF? Contact: rpwalk[at]gmail[dot]com

Night Ghost


Ghosts of the New America [clicky]

Saturday

The Plan

There is a plan and it has nothing to do with any of that spiritual "everything happens for a reason" nonsense because that is and never will be the case. Plans are made and plans are executed or there is no plan and you can just get the hell out of the way while others more ambitious and better prepared soak up the variance. There's only so much oxygen.

Not everyone can have a plan. Nothing happens for a reason unless you make the reason and act against that reason. Creativity is one-tenth natural ability ("gift"), six-tenths torturous suffering ("pain"), and three-tenths pure circumstance ("luck"). You have to plan.

I have a plan. I have a plan to execute. You can join the plan or get the hell out of the way. I want you but I don't need you.

I have had plans before and I will have plans again. I now have a brand new plan because the last half of 2008 has been, artistically, extraordinarily interesting and fulfilling (in a life filled with wildly interesting and fulfilling adventures). Trust me.
"Do or do not...there is no try."

- Yoda

"Don't try. Do!"

- Ralph
There are specific people who have pushed and shoved and nudged and urged and challenged and praised me to the point where I have to either have and execute this plan or die. Like Dick Cheney said, "we are turning a corner."

On January 1, 2009, we will be around that corner. Until then, let me clear the backlog:

There is a plan to execute.

-----------------
The Plan: [clicky]

From Middlespace West (Day 3)

Here we go-Day 3

"Deeper."
Whatever. You are not deep enough at Day 3. Go for bottom.

-ty
---------------------------------
Here we go thread [clicky]
WTF? Contact: rpwalk[at]gmail[dot]com

[What's In The Hat? - v06.a-12.27.08]

Working Title:
Grand Escape 2009
Cast to Date:
  • Ty
  • Rich
  • Dave
In The Hat to Date:
  • Florida (Ft. Lauderdale to Key West)
  • The Dakotas
  • The American Midwest (KC + circle or one-way)
  • Northeastern Cabin
  • Three-day Canoe Trip with Jim
Production Notes to Date:


To Be Continued -- Input Welcomed

v05.x UPDATE [clicky]

Saturday Workshop: Tour of the City



Henry Driving

Friday

From Middlespace West (Day 2)

Here we go-Day 2

-------------------------------
Here we go thread [clicky]

Out/About


Next to the Old P&C


Ghosts of the New America [clicky]

The Girls: An Aunt, A Niece, A German Shepherd





Boxing Day Breakfast Dialogue

Ty (43 years-old): What? Martin Luther King day is the 19th and the inauguration is the 20th? Two black holidays in a row? What is happening in this country?

Florence (83 years-old): [Without missing a beat] I just knew this would happen...you let them out and they take over the whole damn place.

Ty (43 years-old): [Laughed so hard coffee spewed from his nose and he fell off the kitchen chair]

You Are Not An Artist - 10

YOU are not an artist because this piece didn't seep from YOUR brain, through YOUR fingers, onto the typing keys on YOUR laptop, and up onto YOUR interwebs. But The FoOl made it happen:
"Here Lies Mahmoud Haddad
Seeker of the American Dream
A True Son of God"

The FoOl brings the hurt with Canadian style. If you have a short attention span (SAP), just pretend it's not there. But if you can read, click it [clicky]!
-----------

YANAA archive: [clicky]

Thursday

Henry on 91st Birthday/Christmas

+/-

Looky here over at the Rock, Poem, Photo Web log site:
"It has to do with the +/- button. And the little wheel."

- Sistine
[clicky]

+/- button & little wheel = exposure compensation

From Middlespace West (Day 1)

This picture just in (like a Jesus Day present it better turn out to be) from the Left Coast studios of the Otterfarm (a partnership of Ty Hardaway's Middlespace Arts, Powder Monkey Music/BFP, tKoL, blah-blah-blah....):

Here we go-Day 1


Posting it here because I expect there to be subsequent "Here we go" days (Day 2, etc., to completion). The fuck the Berkeley group sets up, routes wires and fizzles. The hell, Rickey P. Powell!

As my redneck friends say, when they're not denigrating non-whites, they say, "git-r-dun."
-------------------------------
Here we go thread [clicky]

Ghost of Christmas Future


Ghosts of the New America [clicky]

A Beating Administered by the Christmas Elf

So like back in like July my six year-old daughter indicated that she wanted to sleep in the same bed with us--her mom and I--"just one time since I've never done that and I love you guys and we can all be together."

Well, hell no, does that work, kid. That's crazy-kid talk. I've seen how children sleep. They are like tumble-dryers full of razor blades or something heinous like that. Toss. Turn. Swat. Talk. Kids sleep like shit. But she kept asking and being all cute and "family-oriented" and insistent and flashing that hypnotic smile. Finally in like August I bluffed, "Well, maybe at Christmastime, sweetheart" thinking that she'd either 1) forget about it in a couple of weeks or, 2) decide on her very own that that was just one totally mopetarded idea to begin with and that the entire notion could simply be forgotten. We'd just keep the fact that she even considered something that stupid on the DL like the first rule of Fight Club.

But my only child is a lot like me and not only took that metaphorical baton but ran laps with it. It probably never was about sleeping with us and being a Norman Rockwell collector's plate family as it was setting (and continuing) a precedent of having things break her way because she willed them to break her way. I know the scam so well. I invented that scam.

And without fail every few weeks, then days, then hours leading up to Christmas we would be reminded how fun and exciting it was going to be to all sleep together on Christmas eve. She told her class. She told her friends. My wife actually sat me down one night around Halloween to look into my eyes and "understand" what I was "thinking" by "promising" something so "ridiculous." I said I thought the child would either forget about it or decide that since I thought it was cool she would on her very own disown and disavow the idea. "She's your child" my wife explained without further elaboration. Oh, we were in trouble then.

So I bluffed and hoped and prayed until about 7:00 PM on Christmas eve that this would all just go the hell away. "Sure honey....uh, are you sure you want to do this? You'd probably be a lot more comfortable and rested and happy sleeping alone and even get more presents." I said that last night. But the B was "go for launch" as they say at the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral. And it took some last minute negotiations to even convince her to begin her night in her own bed (here at grandma and grandpa's house). I told her that when I came up for bed that I'd move her into our bed in our room. Still bluffing was I. I had no real intention to move her but I was informed by my spousal partner and motherofmychild (baby mama) that I had to actually do the shit I promised.

The baby mama spousal unit (BMSU) went up for bed. I followed about an hour later (and seriously considered staying up all goddamn night or at least until everybody was asleep and just crash on the couch and in the morning go, "Awww.... I must have fallen asleep. Darn it!"). And so began the promise fulfillment mission that I forced upon my wife and motherofmyonlychildthatIknowof. I gently pulled the B from her bed and carried her into our room. I put her into the middle of our full sized guest bed and realized that our baby was pretty much filling up the bed herself. BMSU was staring daggers too. We both knew what we were about to experience in this full sized bed with this...child...kid...nearly full sized human.

Torture! I've seen how children sleep. They are like tumble-dryers full of razor blades or something heinous like that. Toss. Turn. Swat. Talk. Kids sleep like shit. If Sarah Palin or 'say it ain't so' Joe Biden ever caught Osama bin Laden and they wanted to make him talk all they'd have to do is have him sleep for one night with my six year-old daughter in a full sized bed. He's going to talk. He's going to reveal every plot past and future. But, of course, Barack Hussein Obama will outlaw cruel and unusual torture techniques and just waterboard him instead as the lesser of two evils.

Now it's the morning after and I feel as I've been punched and kicked and swatted and head-butted all night long because I have been punched and kicked and swatted and head-butted all night long. I'm sure I have kidney damage. Merry Christmas everybody! I feel as if I have been beaten by a thousand of Santa's little elf helpers and all of God's angels for not believing in either of them so adamantly. I have been punished for being a jerk. I have been shown my own mortality. I am filled with the realization that my daughter has totally and completely out-played, out-smarted, and out-witted me for what is the first of a lifetime of offspring beat-downs. I am sore, I am tired, and I am filled with remorse.

And then this morning the B kissed me on the cheek and said, "Merry Christmas, Daddy!"

Wednesday

Foregone

A Swiss Anabaptist Christmas

Checking in with the WGC Scene (Just for Christmas)


Berkeley Jim tells us a holiday story: [clicky] or [clicky]

Priceless Banter archives: [clicky]

W. Willard Gentlemen's Club archive: [clicky]

Ask Ty...December 24 --SUPER HOLIDAY DOUBLE BONUS--

It must be Tuesday Christmas Eve, Middlespace Cadets, because I'm answering your questions

Q: Ty,
For context refer to St. Patrick's Day in Three Parts, Part III: [clicky]

And then tonight, I'm out at an Irish Pub (same one I was at during PB#6 [clicky]) with my employer Colin and others, and ask a guy at the table where he works, and he say Meve Starkus Productions, and I says, without the benefit of a brain-mouth filter, with a spot-on Scharpling delivery, "Oh. I'm sorry." And he responds quickly, to quickly [sic]. Oh, shit, this was supposed to deliver a laugh, not a, no, no, not a a...

"Why? Meve Starkus is my father."

Ha! Why am I suck a dick?

- Dave
[Ed. note: 3:02 AM]

Ty: Good question and an even better observation, Dave. First I love that you're drunk Ask Ty-ing (verb?) at three o'clock in the morning because in such state you are asking the questions that are really important to you. Your guard is down, your filters are AWOL, and you're just a fucking drunk damn mess. I'd take your wallet and wreck your car if I were there with you.
In such a state you are not asking the "how's my hair?" or "does my ass look fat in these jeans?" or "do you want another potato?" sort of questions but you're asking the questions that really matter in your life like:
"Why am I suck a dick?"

- Dave
Gee, Dave. I don't know why you suck a dick. Maybe you like to suck a dick, dunno. I didn't know you were bi or gay and would suck a dick and all that. I wish I knew in college because I would have let you suck plenty a dick. You could probably actually make a little cash sucking a dick, dick sucker.

Ooops! My trusty assistant, Corey, says he thinks you meant to ask why are you such a dick? Corey thinks that, given the context, "such" makes more sense than "suck." But I'm leaving all the stuff about you sucking dick because your typo makes me laugh, dick sucker.

You're not really a dick, Dave. You're a lot like me (except the dick sucking part). You are smart, quick, and superior (and I'm smarter, quicker, and more superior because I don't suck dicks). You take the opportunities given to you. And just like Scharpling, you took that set and spiked it home (except that you just told the interwebs that you suck dicks).

But, unfortunately, when
youwe brazenly seize these opportunities we sometimes run the risk of stepping in the shitpiles of German shepherds. You didn't know that you were going to accidentally disrespect the late Meve Starkus...to his only son's bereaving face. Did you get your ass kicked? I wonder. What a dick sucking dick move, Dave.

But it is my opinion that you are not a dick, Dave. You may suck a little dick but you are not a dick. You are just smart and quick and superior (like me). You are a Middlespace Cadet (that sucks some dicks). You are Middlespace Cadet Dave the Dick Sucker (new "handle"). It's okay; let it slide.

Bigger question (DDS) <-- actually="" are="" askin="" at="" bars="" dave="" dick="" div="" dudes="" guys="" hittin="" is="" on="" suck="" sucker="" they="" to="" trying="" were="" where="" why="" work="" you="">

Just a guess,

-ty

--------- SUPER HOLIDAY DOUBLE BONUS ---------

It must be Christmas because all the questions are about fellatio. This was also in my inbox:
Ty,

Does sucking one's own dick make one gay?

Now, before you go all Dan Savage on me and start saying some shit like "of course it doesn't, you're doing it to yourself, so just like jerking off doesn't make you gay, how could this?" Please note, I did not ask does sucking one's own dick indicate one is gay, but, does it "make" one gay. As in, if I do it, will I start craving someone else's cock in my mouth? Is auto-fellatio a gateway to the "harder" stuff? If I can possibly bend myself in half far enough, if I one day lose the 20lbs necessary to do this, or if my dick miraculously (it is Christmas, after all, help me Jesus!) grows another couple inches (couple??) and I'm able to get that thing between my lips, even just the top of the tip of the head, will I need a cock sucking intervention in a matter of months? Will I be up to my eyeballs in dick? Will I skip work and miss meals to give lob-jobs down at Port Everglades?

Just wondering,

Merv
Good question and an even better observation, "Merv." Blah-blah-blah. Yes, you are a dick sucking person, "Merv." Sorry, you are a dick sucking/craving person, DAVE! Just signing an emailing "Merv" doesn't make it not from "Dave's" emailing account. Just signing "Merv" doesn't deflect from the fact that you sent two dick sucking questions, Dave.

Stop writing me with dick sucking questions, Dave. What's your problem? Just be happy that "you're wonderful, and you're alive, and you deserve every little bit of happiness that the universe has to offer anyone, no matter who or what you like." Even if it's dicks in your mouth.

Just a guess.

--------------

Ask Ty... Archive: [clicky]

The Marketing Computer Figured This Out


The marketing computers full-on know that poor people (blacks and poor white trash) let their kids drink a ton of soda. They also know that soda is addicting as the "crack" cocaine." They also know that the profit on sippy cups approaches the 1,200% profit on soda.

The genius is that they probably sell a ton more of these sippy cups by placing them in the soda aisle than they do by leaving them in the baby products aisle.

Now, if the sippy cups that are impulse-featured in the soda aisle are marked-up from the price of the sippy cups in the baby aisle then this store, Tops, wins the marketing concepts of the year award.

Dear President Bush #43

Pardon Cyrus Yazdani

Tuesday

A Surprising Response -- "The Prophets of Anti-Culture"

Hi Ty Hardaway.

Ohhhhhhhhhh. You got in my head.
"Off to the girly bars
For the girliest of cocktails
Tapas
And friendship(s) continued"

[from "Busted Karma" July 14, 2006]

This, in particular. I have been chewing my cud on it.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh.

I am thinking. I got the more easily accessible point, and I read your words today about it.

But there's something more in there. To me. Its itching me.

Oooohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

-B

It is good to learn that you have affected someone with what you do: art, auto mechanicry, tennis lesson, intervention. It is the surprising responses like above that, as they say, "keeps you going." Actually "they" always say shit like that, but anyone who knows a thing or does a thing fully understands that that keeps you going line is actually complete self-justifying nonsense that only serves to allow you to yet again drag your terrible wares to the craft show for no one to purchase [intentionally stolen paradigm]. You do your thing because you know nothing else to do and you do a thing because you cannot control doing a thing. A thing does you, really.

But with "B" I know the response is not some weirdly ingratiating bullshit. There is not motive or chess playing. I don't have to wonder what the response really means or how that response may stalk me dead by surprise. At the very least I know with "B" that it's only about a thing because "B" has a thing too but it's not available to everyone yet. Great stuff too. I hope to edit the first book of "B". Or, at least, post the work of "B" under pseudonym. It's the thing, stupid.

Looking back, The Rhinosnort Highway was some heyday of train-wreck perfection for sure [clicky]. Back when "Ty Hardaway, the Great Emerging Artist" was doing a thing that was heavy and it came together without apparent effort although there was plenty of pain and suffering and fear. Pictures and words still resonating...mostly DC-Boston-DC stuff, an era past. Good stuff, serious stuff, important stuff unlike the hodgepodge of shotgun blast "art" I'm producing today. I'm not bitter or sad or angry though because I know a thing just comes and a thing just goes without any sort of internal locus of control. I know now.

My response via electronical mail to "B" since I have nothing new of real value to offer--at all-- was this find: [clicky]. Maybe I will use the beginning of 2009 as another jump-off to good works. We'll see. I don't control it. It's like The Outer Limits and the transmissions are being remotely controlled.

I mean, who knows when a thing has you, right?

10:59 PM

Untitled (12.23.08_2 but related to "@" w/different camera)

Untitled (12.23.08_1)

I Feel I Never Told You The Story of the Ghost(s)



Ghosts of the New America [clicky]

@

Thanks, Middlespace Cadets!

Cassady sent me a limited edition photograph today. So sweet.

Lily gave me a frame. So nice.

[Image Copyright CKissam 2008]

1 + 1 = Done. Thank you, Cadets!

Lefty's Lament on the Road

Monday

The Eggs Were Really Good


Nofail eggs.

Levels & Degrees by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: A Clearance Blow-out Sale & Sync

Read Me First: Seriously, go get headphones and select this Web-linked track [Priceless Banter #14] before you begin reading this Web-linked posting. Really. I'm not goofing around with you anymore. I just finished writing this very Web log posting below and the audio track [clicky] really makes it "all come together" --and if you're "at work" or "with the kids" or some other whiney-ass bullshit excuse, participate with me later because you'll have some bored or down-time over the holidays. I don't care. But I made this you for the holidays.

- Sincerely, Ty


"Some people prefer cupcakes better, but I for one, care less for them."

- Fran Zappa, Bongo Fury, May 20th or 21st, 1975

Rehearsal Letter "J":

Obviously there are levels and degrees to everything conceived by humans. Arena League Football isn’t the National Football League. New York City isn't Wasilla. Jamaica's bobsled team is a bobsled team from Jamaica, right? It is diversity that makes a thing interesting and worthwhile ultimately. Levels and degrees is why we compete for top honors. Levels and degrees is why we have a future filled with flying cars and robot slaves and Barack Hussein Obama on the $25 bill. Levels and degrees invented aspiration.

The Olney Ballet Theater's (OBT ("Yeah, you know me")) presentation of The Nutcracker is definitely not the Joffrey's presentation with live music and dancers beaten to within an inch of their young, fragile lives to "PERFORM DAMMIT!" And that's where I was yesterday at the OBT ("Yeah, you know me"). Personally I would have chosen to see the Joffrey version at the Kennedy Center but we weren't sure if the child was up for two and a quarter hours of real ballet at $135 a ticket. So we went to the OBT ("Yeah, you know me") for $35 a pop. She was b-o-r-e-d but stuck it out like the badass she is.

I am such a fucking arts snob. I mean I do love the arts, believe me. My arts situation is incredibly important to me. I love and I share, you know? And I was all delighted to be in a third row seat in a live theater with a stage and all the lights and the over-saturated, incandescent white balance warmth of professional sets and costumes with music and dance. It was a experientially wonderful, really.

But, I was all cognitively critical of the execution of things. Well not all "things" because the costumes, set-design and FX were quite good. Not the kids either, they were super-great, and Clara was magnificent. But this is a small school-theater-based ballet that relies on what's called "guest artists" and program ads from Realtors and hair salons. Unfortunately, and here's where I suck as an audience member of any kind, many of the guest ringers were well past their primes and it goddamn showed. They were exposed to me as if they were being waterboarded in a live sex show the stage. I knew all their truths. I was so sad for them. And the music was too loud and poorly edited. At some point I actually thought, "I could probably put on The Nutcracker on my laptop iTunes and dance around in candy cane tights and probably get maybe $5 a seat for one night." Am I a jerk? You can tell me. I have thick-thin skin, tell me but tell me you love me.

I mean I appreciate what these people do and that it is clear that they probably were really quite good at dancing on their toes and landing softly 13 years ago. But, hell if this didn't make me want to die at times for very specific reasons. Reasons like, will he be able to lift her? What is he hiding with a cod piece that big? She probably knows my mother. Worse is the fact that I was not in an audience filled with similar snobs and people were actually digging this performance (or they were really high, dunno). I am a horrible person, I know. But, let me be clear it is totally cool that the Sugar Plum Fairy dancer won the Princess Grace Award...in 1989.

But this isn't even the point of this post [Note: I'm wildly distracted right now because I'm listening to Priceless Banter #14 and it's really fucking good so far...and has been downloaded 16 times at some site I never heard of. WTF, right? We made this like last year and just put it up on Blogger now it's at some site I never heard of and somebody has downloaded it a bunch of times? What the hell? This #14 is goddamn great though. Essence isn't just a magazine if you feel me. I know I'm all riffin' improv-style in a punctuation bracket right now. I know this. I know these things but the guitars are like water and the drums like thunder.... In fact, this very comment in this very punctuation bracket is pretty much what tKoL is has always been about: meandering improv riffs and very long wakes. And case you're still here and following along this, let me give you the first important Easter egg in a severall years: Mind the comments. These comments to you within these very punctuation brackets is exactly what middlespace is. Don't say I never told you, either. Here it is right here on the interwebs in English: PB #14, headphones, and these very bracketed comments is what middlespace is]. The point of this post is there are levels and degrees to things. Everything.



Three Best Quotations of the Day So Far Today in No Particular Order
:
"Wow, thank you. Its not everyday someone sends you something they wrote. That's a real present."

"Just gorgeous. You're a genius."

"Wow. It took me a while to fire up all my morning synapses to figure out who/what that was and what you were saying? Did I send that to Ty? That was ages ago. Right on. Other people's shit gots a long wake too, I suppose."

"I'm the absolute funniest person in the world when I'm stoned. Had the fuckers rolling at the last night. Forced people to have spit takes and everything."

"I think you'd like it-- story of a woman in a criminal psych ward claiming she's a member of a secret organization that fights evil."

"No, that's in your pants."

"The point of this post is there are levels and degrees to things."

"For a minute there I thought you were going all OCD on us."
Obviously, it rains diamonds upon our shoulders, people. Stop crying because you're successful. Whaaaa-whaaaa! I'm successful. STFU! Love who you are and appreciate what you contribute.


My Side of the Story:

I went to a Board of Directors meeting the other night and we got to the part where we were discussing the '09-'10 budget for this one organization I govern when all of a sudden a paradigm shift happened before our very eyes and things got all red state-blue state partisan political on us.

Two camps quickly dug in WWI trench-style: The Number Patriots v. The Big Picturists. Conservatives and liberals, Jews and Palestinians, Sunni and Shiite, Democrats and Republicans, and now The Number Patriots v. The Big Picturists. Mortal enemies who must bury the other's families in perpetuity.

It started when the Number Patriots ambushed the corporate accountants with independent spreadsheets and what they posited as "questions." These "questions" were basically thinly disguised attacks on how this organization has historically managed The Money and how, specifically, how this organization will pay its staff money in the future starting with the '09-'10 fiscal year. The Number Patriots were the paramilitary jack-booted lacrosse brotherhood of assassins who had obviously met prior to this general board meeting.

Over on the left side of the large boardroom table, the Big Picturists were all touchy-feelie and Correctly keen to how much it costs the staff to purchase groceries and gasoline and provide child care "in this economy." The Big Picturista were all long view forward and backwards with regard to what's going to happen with the government and the economy and the demographics and how certain things impact other things and how we should just all "make it work in everyone's best interest." It was very much like an ACLU 12-step hippie jam fest. Lots of passive aggressive "love" over here. These people couldn't organize an side meeting to save all the whales in all the oceans.

There was a great impasse. But I, fortunately, carry the Sandy O'Connor swing vote of logic baton with me everywhere I go. I swing the vote where it needs to go. I was ready to posse-up and solve things by swinging the vote quickly determined trouble was ahead when I spotted my closest political ally, Joan, nodding off at the opposite end of the large boardroom table. Was she poisoned, I wondered. Perhaps. So I was alone. All by myself in this deal just like everything else in one's life, ultimately. In all things we will forever be alone (and "all ends are all beginnings"). So when it comes time to make a particular decision about what do we can only do what we decide to do.

In all things political, I take in a lot of information and filter it thoroughly; quickly but thoroughly. I make decisions and I stick with most of those decisions because I have learned that my decisions and opinions are usually the right decisions and opinions for the circumstances. Hence, when it came to the final pay rate percentage vote, I ended up voting, to the surprise of many and largely as "A Symbolic Gesture," with the radical minority from the Number Patriot gang. Levels and degrees, there is a thesis. I understood it perfectly.


United States Governors Who Had Something Interesting Happen to Them in 2008 (partial):
  • Schwarzenegger
  • Spitzer
  • Palin
  • Blagojevich
  • Paterson
  • Jindal
  • Napolitano
  • Richardson
  • Crist
  • O'Malley
  • Perry
  • Ritter
  • Sebelius
  • Patrick
  • Pawlenty
  • Gibbons
  • Stirckland
  • Rendell
  • Kaine

Not Art Until You Sell Something My Ass:


I'm supposed to putting a new gallery show together right now, but I'll never do it though. I cannot process the commerce side. Ask anybody. But, obviously there are levels and degrees to everything we've done and that we will do so I leave you here, at the beginning: [clicky]

See you soon & good holidays all

Finding Your Voice

I finally just gave up forever on Microsoft Word (RIP) and decided to open my Google Docs to finally get some writing done because I was dead in the brain for art over the weekend. I'm retarded like that though. What was I ever thinking to forget Google Docs? It must be the years of ancestral slavery altering synapse firing sequences. Or something like that.

So I open Google Docs and I find the following document:
"Trip List" edited on March 16, 2008 1:37 PM by tyhardaway
  1. Headphones
  2. Books
  3. Snacks
  4. Favorite night things
  5. Suitcase
  6. Pants
  7. Socks
  8. Shirts
  9. Underwear
  10. Shorts
  11. Shoes
  12. iPod
  13. Pajamas
  14. Bathroom stuff
  15. Sunglasses
  16. Jackets
  17. Games
  18. Art stuff
  19. Pictures
  20. Gifts
So I was all, like, WTF because I don't make lists to travel. I know how to travel. Travel is not a hard thing like nuclear physics. It's all in my brain how to travel by now. But, why did I make this list and I don't remember it? I know I'm losing my mind but to forget that I am a guy that makes lists is chronic Alzheimer's territory especially when I was so certain I wasn't a guy who makes lists for things (you've seen how I work...ever see lists?).

Then I realized that it must be the B's list. Makes sense now. She probably insisted we make a list and I was all, "No, hyper-intelligent and hyper-efficient people like us do not need lists or manuals or rules or warnings on coffee cups that you wouldn't want to spill hot-ass coffee on yourself because there is still something called logic in this world if mopes." Or something like that. Not to be confused by "Memory Devices" which she probably confused for "lists." She's still young. I forget this fact because she rocks so hard.

Anyway, the B's list: I love that "headphones" is item number one even when iPod is like 12. I love that "snacks," "art," and "favorite night things" appear on the list. "Books" checks in at position two. That's my gzzrl.


Also, aside from somebody's resume sent to me and a spreadsheet on a book project with Middlespace Cadet Sistine (yes, that's your new Middlespace Cadet Corps "handle") and "Directions to Susan's House" in my forgotten Google Docs, there's a document titled, "ATT01162." Text in its entirety:
From your friends reggie & greg
Sent from my iPhone
Seriously, I've forgotten all this stuff and you wonder why I "put so much" on the interwebs. Which is kind of what I told Middlespace Cadet Betsy Lou (yes, that's your new MCC "handle") this morning. I am telling her about how its okay to do your art despite everything else and I sent her a link to a random poem I posted like two years ago. And she was all, WTF, son what is your problem?--you need Lexapro, Holmes. Stop stalkin'. That's what she said.

Mine from past to Betsy Lou: [clicky]

[What's In The Hat? - v05.a-12.22.08]

Working Title:
Grand Escape 2009
In The Hat to Date:
  • Florida (Ft. Lauderdale to Key West)
  • The Dakotas
  • The American Midwest (KC + circle or one-way)
  • Northeastern Cabin
  • Three-day Canoe Trip with Jim

Production Notes to Date (continued):
Let me throw out another "Grand Escape" of an entirely different variety. Three day canoe trip on the Sacramento River in September with Jim etc.

Just something else for the hat.

Consider it hatted. We will know.

To Be Continued -- Input Welcomed

v04.x UPDATE [clicky]

Kids in the Street

"If it wasn't for your mother, you would think you were crazy. At least now you know."

tKoL - late '90s
[clicky]

No Corporate Accounting Skillz

Middlespace Cadet Rickey Powell (his new "handle") sent this to me from Berkeley, California:


I asked him if I could "lightly edit and post and if it's OK, how did he want me to attribute it. Rickey Powell replied, "Do whatever you want. Attribute however you want."

I am going to take his folding camp shovel.

Sunday

What is Zero?

A: The number of photos taken by me today.

Noart.

Saturday

How to Annoy Family & Friends

For the Reeds:
'Twas the night before Mope-mas, when all through the mope-house
Not a mope was stirring, not even a mope-mouse;
The stockings were mopehung by the chimney with mope-care,
In hopes that St. Mope-olas soon would be mope-there;

The mope-kids were nestled all mope-snug in their mope-beds,
While visions of mope-plums danced in their mope-heads;
And mope-mom in her 'kerchief, and mope-I in my mope-cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's mope-nap,

When out on the mope-lawn there arose such a mope-clatter,
Mope-I sprang from the bed to see what was the mope-matter.
Away to the window mope-I flew like a mope-flash,
Tore open the mope-shutters and threw up the mope-sash.

The mope-moon on the mope-breast of the mope-fallen snow
Gave the mope-lustre of mope-day to mope-objects below,
When, what to my wondering mope-eyes should appear,
But a miniature mope-sleigh, and eight tiny mope-deer,

With a little mope driver, so lively and moep-ick,
I knew in a mope-ment it must be Mope Nick.
More rapid than mopeles his coursers they mope-came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by mope-name;

"Now, Mope-Masher! now, Mope-Mancer! now, Mope-Mrancer and Mope-Mixen!
On, Mope-Momet! on Mope-Mupid! on, Mope-Monder and Mope-Mlitzen!
To the top of the mope-porch! to the top of the mope-wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away mope-all!"

As mope leaves that before the wild hurricane mope-fly,
When they mope-meet with an obstacle, mount to the mope-sky,
So up to the mope-top the coursers they mope-flew,
With the sleigh full of mope-toys, and St. Mope-olas too.

And then, in a mope-ling, I heard on the mope-roof
The moping and pawing of each little mope-hoof.
As I mope-drew in my mope-hand, and was turning mope-round,
Down the mope--chimney St. Mopeolas came with mope bound.

He was mope-dressed all in mope-fur, from his mope-head to his mope-foot,
And his mope-clothes were all mopished with ashes and mope-soot;
A bundle of mope-toys he had flung on his mope-back,
And he looked like a mope-ler just opening his mope-pack.

His eyes -- how they mope-twinkled! his mope-dimples how mope-merry!
His mope-cheeks were like mope-roses, his mope-nose like a mope-cherry!
His droll little mope-mouth was drawn up like a mope-bow,
And the mope-beard of his mope-chin was as mope-white as mope-snow;

The mope-stump of a mope-pipe he held mope-tight in his mope-teeth,
And the mope-smoke it mope-circled his mope-head like a mope-wreath;
He had a mope face and a little mope belly,
That mope-shook, when he mope-laughed like a bowlful of mope-jelly.

He was mope-chubby and mope-plump, a mope-right jolly old mope-elf,
And mope-I mope-laughed when mope-I saw him, in spite of mopeself;
A mope-wink of his mope-eye and a mope-twist of his mope-head,
Soon gave mope-me to mope-know mope-I had nothing to mope-dread;

He mope-spoke not a mope-word, but went mope-straight to his mope-work,
And mope-filled all the mope-ings; then mope-turned with a mope-jerk,
And mope-laying his mope-finger aside of his mope-nose,
And giving a mope-nod, up the mopeney he mope-rose;

He mope-sprang to his mope-sleigh, to his mope-team gave a mope-whistle,
And away they all mope-flew like the mope-down of mope thistle.
But mope-I heard mope-him exclaim, ere he mope-drove out of mope-sight,
"Happy Mopemas to all, and to all a mope-night."
-----------------

Annoying Sunday Live Brunch Recital with French Horn Intro & Outro [clicky]
Annoying Saturday Live Brunch Recital with Orchestral Intro & Outro - Short Version [clicky]

Bad News

On Dec 20, 2008, at 2:10 PM, [dave dave] wrote:

"Bad news, Sir. The aliens that turned zombie have become vampires. The zombie vampire aliens have broken in to the power plant and are now radioactive. They are spreading bird flu in the subways. We request backup."

Friday

Some Mopetown College Faculty, Board of Studies in Psychology

Professor Geu Essh Goode

Dr. E. Vell Schwartz

Mopes of a Feather

Holiday Card Press

"Your card totally cracked us up. We have a little card tree where we put all our holiday cards and YOURS IS ON THE TOP… the shining star to our card tree."

- San Diego, CA

"I have your card intentionally placed in the middle of a sea of kodakgallery photo cards of a whole lot of smiley kids under xmas trees, in radio flyer wagons, and with family labs. And I wish I had it filmed for you the process certain people go through when they come in the dining room and start absentmindedly looking over the display. Like hidden camera/close up on their faces with odd someone-playing-the-saw-Appalachia-style in the background. Its been one of my favorite things about Christmas this year."

- Newburyport, MA

"That's the funniest g*dd*amn thing I've ever seen!"

- Washington, D.C.

"Not at this Address. Return to sender. Quit stalkin'!"

- Los Angeles, CA

"Your card is hilarious! Mark didn't even recognize u guys at first. :O) Most holiday cards I kiss goodbye after the season... urs might be one of the few keepers. CHEERS!!!"

- Kentlands, USA
WTF?

The limited edition 2008 Middlespace Cadet Corps (MCC) holiday cards, that's TF. Last run shipped tomorrow.

By the way, and very important, photo and co-art direction by Lily V. She's badass! It's art.

Is everything a project? You bet! How do you get on the mailing list? You gotta buy in, kids. You've got to pay to play, like Blagojevich said. I take PayPal.

A Middlespace Merry Christmas, Middlespace Cadets

Middlespace Administrative Notice 12.19.08

  • For immediate release
  • Commencing January 1, 2009
  • Middlespacers will be the Middlespace Cadet Corps
  • Watch for updates

Judge Judy Stops the Presses

Here's that photo where Big Dave Wave met that dude...what's his name?...real loser dude who thought he could be a president like Brock O'Baughmaugh...oh yes, Fred Thompson.

The Middlespace Holiday Special 2008 presents

Big Dave Wave (on the right) meets Fred Thompson (on the left). I framed it for the Christmas mantle:

I don't want to wreck Big Dave Dave's gig so I'm not going to type my first thoughts on the subject although I did send those thoughts to Big Dave Wave via electrical mails (it contained a D-word and a B-word).

But you can caption it all you want in the comments.

----------------------------
Oh #1: I also asked about the clocks [clicky].
Oh #2:Big Dave Wave knows Barry Oh!® too [clicky].

S-s-s-something from the Emails

So a loyal Middlespacer sent me this story and link:
Arkansas family welcomes 18th child, a girl
Thu Dec 18, 8:46 pm ET

ROGERS, Ark. – An Arkansas woman has given birth to her 18th child. Michelle Duggar delivered the baby girl by Caesarean section Thursday at Mercy Medical Center in Rogers....

"The ultimate Christmas gift from God," said Jim Bob Duggar, the father of the 18 children. "She's just absolutely beautiful, like her mom and her sisters."

[clicky]
I almost deleted that email but I figured if Loyal Middlespacer took the time to send it to me, all exasperated, "She needs to keep her legs closed or he needs to use condoms. They're pissing me off!" A nerve was touched.

Like I said, I almost dumped that note because I wasn't thinking how IMPORTANT this was in the scheme of all things human. My reply [w/typos fixed]:
"I am certain it's for the Lord too [hadn't read the whole article by that reply]. NO, wait, father must be a weird egomaniac thus all 18 chirrens with J-word names [father is Joe Bob].

WTF, people?

At first I was all...I ain't going to read this but now I'm fascinated.

They believe in their project though. It's a thing now. He bought the act long ago and has convinced her that it's her "mission." I get it and sort of respect it too.

If they could step out of the act for one minute, they would piss themselves off too. "Buying the act" is the worse thing that could happen to a person. Like that guy from One Day at a Time, Schneider or whatever. Joe Bob is that guy now. Little Richard? Evangelicals? All the same. Elton John too.

I say god bless Jimi and Kurt Cobain and Janis and Heath died in their prime. Fuck, Michael Jackson? Should killed him after Thriller.

People need to stop buying their acts."
Mother of 18? She'd rather die in North Korea's Camp 14. As much as I am fascinated by people they scare the hell out of me too.

I could say more but I have a Big Dave Wave meets that dude...what's his name...real loser...oh, Fred Thompson to post. Big Dave Wave meets Fred Thompson pic just trumped the birth of Joe Bob's 18th child.