Been SO Long / Saluting / At The Finish

I haven't been here in awhile.

SO much on my mind, more pictures and thoughts than words.

Seasons are changing, time is passing. Fires are burning. Lots of pictures of mistakes.

Lives are ebbing. There is both constant chaos and quiet reflections.

I reach for you
a ball of yarn
to reconcile my feelings,
loss of all those over time
but still you
unwind
in my mind
you become every
face, many faces
like fibers folded all together
to measure at life's finish.

Many faces, all filled with grace.
I reach for threads,
but they slip away
cords unstripped by design
into the winds like golden hairs they fly
many traces of whiskers of history of faces
every one of you belongs here.

Every ball that draws us up,
will unspool at the end of time
and rub our nose in the decay,
but I was lying when I said
I was going to be brave.

You want life to rave up,
but occasionally you come to the breakdown.
someone takes a brick from your foundation
and you lose all sense of place.

I know that it hurts,
I just don't know how hard.
An small explosion,
like a fist in a pile of flour
erupting like a thousands clocks going off the rails
dangerous moments among the faithful.

(quiet) (quiet) (quiet)

you look at me with these eyes.
diving into each other,
I have loved you
I have failed you,
and I will reach across
the bridge of time
for you.

The Movie At The Rest Of Time

Toxic,
Information,
infestation,
hateful fascination
lately, hazily and in your face-ly
media wash-overs
a million stories a minute
and I cannot swim well anymore;
drowning sometimes.
overwhelmed beyond a careless yawn.
indifference
then sleep.
(then kisses, then dreams, then hope without heartache for
a million daffodils waving like a chorus line)
everything joyful is ignored
everything changes too quickly to fall in love to deeply
to keep things close which
one can keep
that any fire might
render asunder
low grade chaos,
every star in the night sky
exposes by flame
the game changed
me, who I once knew
into something new
I cannot swim through
I sometimes miss The Who I thought I knew
(then there are things I know / my baby just cares for me /
each star in the sky dulls in comparison / to he)
sand, caving in from waves
which I understand overlap
birds flap over heads, things go white,

and for a minute I gaze as time passes
in the quiet/loud
in here.

I'm always in here.
everything seems to come back here.



























my thoughts, dark or light, to the same place.
circling and circling and circling
inside my anxiety
my trembling before
the cage bars
to a frozen bird.

Trying to find a way out of the art slump / I Still Exist / Re-Ignite!

I can still see.
everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon,
post on instagram,
twitter storm to social media-whore fame.
I tell myself one day
all the clouds will fall away
and the simple things,
the leaves that sway,
the drag of a pastel across paper
in a summer breeze
and the rustle of absent people
will be the only
thing that is heard.

'Play In The Clouds' (Spitfire Pathways), 2018, Mixed Media on Toned Paper

The Thousand Blurry Joys of Memory / This Story Is Told In Parts

Why can't you reach inside
Like I have?

That scar on your face
that beautiful face of yours
don't you think that I know
that they've hurt you...before.

Oh my memory...serves me far too well.

Valentines / New Year / Love

Kyle, Casey, Casey's Fiancee, Jacqi and Me, Company party 2018

At Work Shenanigans

Agate Cove, Sunrise

Robert Under The Trees

Trees For Robert

He Works Hard For The Money!!

Ptttttp! (Yeah, its a fucking bat, yo.)

Oh The Hugh Manatee!!

Besties, 2018

Wandering In The Cross-Town (Mental) Traffic

Picture this: A Synopsis (AN unspooling)

melting into the sea
sightless ego made of sand, revealed
not as strong or mad, or ego-free
as I thought I would be...

why am I so angry. so easily bothered/ upset?

Roaming the country side asleep on a dead horse / tethered.  Haunted by witches, still.

getting/moving/seeing/seething/pleading/eyes/distracted

moneyed/cruel/tools/sales/veils/nails/rails/pale/white/whale

first drawing. in a while. did I break myself?

I feel talented and stupid. The boredom of too tightly a repeating pattern enrages me. Co-workers seem to like me. But they also cry to me and naturally deputize me for things because of my age. I am now one of the old guys where I work. There are only two people older. They don't know any of the bands that mean anything to me, even though the music plays on the radio throughout the day. They don't understand why I know all their bands too. People don't try very hard to find out anything anymore. They huff and puff their way out of the simplest tasks. Also: Get off my lawn.
















Even on my best days, I do not feel like I fit anywhere right now.  Nathaniel makes it seem so easy.

In some ways I feel like a turntable which has reached the end of the record and is just going around the last groove because the return arm is malfunctioning in their working life. The balance of personal projects and professional life seems dauntingly cyclical. Actual praise seems weird and foreign. People so kind and present sound like background noise to the din of angry hateful voices not getting what they want no matter how many organs I offer up for sale. I realized why I hatred retail too many months ago to sound pathetic anymore. Money craziness. Work imbalance. A certain deadening that creeps in with the realization there is no getting off the treadmill at all costs.

I feel genuinely frayed most days. Predominantly inadequate on a number of levels. Feeling challenged on the things I feel skilled at. Everyone else is taking so much, the well is dry when I dare to look. But so much beauty....and potential. Hang in there, Steve. Hang in there.

Just passing through 'till we reach the next phase / the futures changed / perceptions all been erased

Shootings, Dollar and day-lates, some poetry (after a spell.)

flying cars,
shooting stars?
they're all secrets
we still can't see.

Don't want to talk of the
divided states,
insurance rates,
all of us tossed
to the fates.

the paradigm is smoothly polished,
engrained in the strains
of our dark undergrowth,
apron strings which act
as strangler figs
close out the last of
the light and the fight
(of blue eyes, stale pints
 Irish jigs and queer delights).

Things are perhaps fucked up
and slightly perfect in their own ways,
being used for that which they were designed
to misalign the patterns of the spring.

Lights on strings, hewn logs in a straight line
dances with in lux and stretches away from the trees
like a darkness out here, it goes for miles
from the warm reds of autumn to
the sunburst finish.

Frightened again by a new day
wheels spinning but faster and in less control
despite the centrifugal forces pushing
down the weight of the wet clay
From Brilliant and perfect
to broken and chaos and disorder
and down it all rains.

scared and skipped and tripped up, careless.
my courage fails, sails, nails it down,
yet is full of fear.

You cannot forget
how we captured it.
your head spins
the day we met
don't stop talking about chance.

Now it is so,
we know secrets.
as cars shoot by
we fly by stars.

Unfinished Thoughts / July Something or Other

the day was too long.

I was too complicated.

Torn a little lately.

I am good. I am working hard.

Modern life interferes with whatever it is I am working on...

and I cannot. Let go. Let go of my ego.

------

the court case rings in my ears and my sensibilities.

I do not think I am comfortable doing jury duty again.

I let an insane woman attack a innocent intoxicated woman and walk away.

She laughed in court when identified by her attacker.

She was captured on tape beating a nurse walking home from a bar.
while walking her dog.

While walking her dog, whose leash she grabbed first BEFORE hitting the victim.

Yes. on tape.

But a motherfucking preponderance of the evidence, seeds of doubt planted by a skilled scumbag public defense attorney and bunch of legal mumbo-jumbo and she's let go on a technicality.

KaRMA REPAYS all those who are banished from the reality palace.

-----

Also a big fuck you to Paul Dilly-dally
and his boastful post-fifty bedpost notching while discussing
LAME sexual encounters.

A Total Pig Paul? YOU WERE FUCKING ASLEEP!!!

SNOORING!

Seriously eat a fucking bag of old dicks. You were asleep at the fucking trough. You're pretending to be gorging from the well while you skim the surface and feign stinky mystery. Meanwhile Bob and I have gone so far down the same rabbit hole no one else have ever been where we are with each other or ourselves. And you? You're skipping stones over a cold dead lake hopping to strike lightning.

And he was a Pig in bed? I pity your lack of achievement Paul.

Really.

------

Music continues to heal me. We have not given up on each other.

<3 bob.="" p="" to="">

Selfie Ghoul / Time Off / I Still Can

4 AM / No Sleep / AS / In Passing We Grow Older Everyday / Always

Add caption

The Last Two Months / Music, Art and Whatthefuckery

*Busy Signal* / Prospect of Sound / Scent of a Sunset

I'm not asking for more now.

Whew, this last year. Barely any blog posts. total life shift. The dog's bollocks. Doing a lot of barking but taking a break from my creativity to make money. How does one do both again? derailed, curtain -called and hard to do without a sense of reason.

Cut to the heart of pain / I just do the same again

Tough middle age bitch, but I demure

from stiff upper lip to angle-poise grace,
 I step away,

    guided. IN the evening air, lost in space.

the noise, the (lack of) art

 sprinting, sleeping, spluttering, suggesting, subjugating,

    not sold separately, irreprepablytrembleylatelyshankly.

  but all is cast off before the fire

 before old flames die

and your mother poisons

   the apple pie
  (the palace is still part of a silver age)*

*Your son and the moon.

A New Year Almost...Quiet

This year unfinished.

Bowie. Prince. George Michael.

New Job. Old Job. Staying alive...I'm barely there.

The idea of re-igniting my creative side seems daunting. So much work...I am 'on' all the time. People who are hurting. People who are hateful. People who just won't fucking go away. Narcissistic people. Theatre people. Needy people. Unhealthy people. Dead people. I can't anymore. Can't quite make it, or fake it. All my heroes are dead or imaginary. Everyone else I want to punch in the face.

and I'm always tired.

Working for someone, for something, for nothing probably. Waiting for the pleasure bus...or  day that is ever truly 'off'.

Not happening. Everything is happening. Everything at once. No time. All the time. Too busy waiting...for the malestrom  or the hale storm, or the inane questions about the hatestorm...I'm so fucking tired. god am I so so so so so fucking tired.

No art, no music, barely hanging in there for someone to complain about something I have no control over. All my heroes are tabloid fodder. I want to spit acid on the TMZ-goons of this world. I want my 90 days. I want to sleep. I want it all to go away for 5 minutes. I wish I was 10,000 miles away with another name and face.

Its quiet here, except for george michael in the headphones muttering quietly on the living room floor, like hands clasped silently in space....celebrating sadness.

Life is so rough. Yeah? save your fucking super peevish white people problems.  They're nothing. Superficial. Cosmetic. Surface. The suffering you experience is all in your head. Perceived. So many tired, angry, lazy people that deserve nothing more than to be punched repeatedly in the head until they are unconscious. I am one of them...waiting for that day. Waiting for me. Waiting for the quiet.

The Passage Of Time Leaves / Daylight Savings

Tonight at work while helping a customer, there was a loud bang, followed by the familiar sound of a collision.

Tires squealed. I knew there had been an accident. Minutes later there were sirens. Then more sirens. Ambulances. I could not step out to see what had happened initially. Instead I had to keep helping customers, some of whom were starting to come in, telling us something had happened.

"There is a body in the street." Somebody had been hit. Two cars had collided in the midst of the maelstrom, either as part of, or the root cause of the accident. As traffic to the area was summarily curtained off, customer intake dwindled. Eventually, I was able to go outside. The yellow sheet I had seen once before was there, slumped against the planter, dark liquid or some darkened mass beneath it running onto the street. I looked up the street, realizing what I just heard was witnessed about about 200 people out shopping during the Saturday night dinner and bar scene. Right in front of Whole Foods, about 80 feet from our front door, were many hundreds of people now gathering, surrounded by several trucks, police and emergency workers.

Then I had to go back in and help customers. For an hour.  I guess I must have this down, because I went on autopilot, thinking about how what if Bob read about this on the news and thinks it was me crossing the street? This level of freak out, I do not want.

A co-worker says there are some people who are outside saying they think he may have purposely dove in front of the car, not tripped as others say or saw. I know a bit about how people witness an accident or experience can differ greatly among eyewitnesses, so I tried not to pay attention to it. Later on the way home, I saw how it also totally disrupted all the inbound traffic on market for many hours.

At work I have difficulty counting out my drawer. I feel very anxious. Everyone's awareness seems...heightened. I cannot wait to get home. the day had been long before this. Our computers had gone down this morning, about 10 minutes after after I got on the floor. It was chaos, probably the biggest pain I had experienced since working there. It was only about 30 minutes but it seemed like forever. I didn't sleep again. Weird dreams. Missing Bob. Such a strange day and this caps the evening.

I am so grateful for whatever experience or joy it is that I have, and doubly so for those that others may not. Life is so quick. You can work so hard all your life for nothing, or be gifted beyond belief and die early. Survival is more about chance than is truly is about anything else. I've seen it up close too many times myself to mention here. It seems only by accident that most of us remain here sometimes. Whatever happens is going to happen. Maybe the only takeaway is you have to be joyful in the moment no matter what.

I know tonight I am home enjoying my life while someone else's life has suddenly been changed forever. I am so very fortunate to not be the man beneath that yellow sheet. Or anyone else directly involved for that reason. I hope that whatever good energy I am trying to put out into the universe will counter this, even if that is just to smile at somebody, for just a moment.

Remembering Everything I Forgot / Forgetting Everything I Remember

My anxiety is through the roof right now.

So much information. Too much information. Technical. Emotional. Irrational. My brain is more spun now than it has been in a long, long time. Trying to take it all in, hold it all in or just plain make sense of it all.

I'm not sleeping. Which is making me paranoid, angry and restless during the day-making it doubly difficult to think clearly at exactly the time I most need my wits and concentration. I worry about managing my stress. I worry about getting hired. If I get hired, I worry about making mistakes that will get me fired. I worry that my inability to keep a poker face will be my undoing. I feel like a stupid little boy still. One who wasn't instilled with either much confidence nor taught to forgive himself, but was taught to see himself as broken,  and that other people can see that somehow. I worry that I too angry all the time. I worry people will think I hate them. I worry that they might be right. That somehow there is not enough love in my heart to be a good enough person to help people anymore. That my bluff will be called. That people will think I am a liar. Even if I manage to get my head around the vast amount of technical knowledge that still feels unfamiliar, that this will somehow unravel into a knot.

I feel tempest tossed, lost in a storm. IN a city filled with people, I feel isolated. Burdened. Burdensome. Last night I had a dream about the black rabbit of Inlay. He asked me if I was tired. I told him I was.

A Treasure Of Quicksilver, In Time

What on earth

my eyes, half closed

half...unaware.

restless, almost asleep

my glance focuses into gaze.

soft light

shadows,

some parlance for joy muttered in another language.

quiet.

I don't know what I am waiting for...

sirens? Majesty?

Something untranslated...burning?

I came to herald you...but I ran aground on the moment

quiet, on the grassy field, covered in 35 mm,

coveted, consumed, like quicksilver

lost in a drain

lost like a derailed train

coaxed into the ether

a treasure of time,

history delineated into mystery,

misery, perjury, purgatory,

purchases, surcharges, and far off sounds imitating sinister hysterics...

quiet.

All is hidden here, in the moment,

stolen from the banging, semi-coherant draining

of the ceiling monster's clanging

inside tonight's apple-core head.

Spooling nothingness.

quiet...quiet, again.

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

Did you see it, There, in the faint misty drifts...?

Not Pop Songs (cacaphony for Kate)

Can't keep my eyes open.

When I close them, all I see are mistakes.
(what happened to that FM station?)

ice moves
overhead
moored boats locked in its grip
their undersides tattooed
with the shapes of black rabbits.

in the cracks in the grain
where water once flowed up the
tree like mother to child, from the earth,
hundreds of cars screech by
beeping, honking, fist-shaking cacophony reigns
everyone so bothered, jealous, pious
and angry
crushed together with all the people they hate
including themselves.
Their aches, and rattles
clamoring down
some noisy wasteland.

I look up again, at the ice,
barely moving, we're all trapped here
a sea of black rabbits chasing each other
into bright shiny boxes.

I can't keep my eyes open.
(wish I could hear the radio)
these dials are frozen over.
(step out into the liquid sky)
when the moon is in the water.

Witchful Sisters

Now you take off your head...

The horses run along the tracks
alongside other animals
hidden in the dark
compressed in the hinterlands
wreathed in ashen garlands
and in the middle...
remnants of an old spark.

Devils, witchfinders, sinister
kisses, viciousness and antebellum chandeliers
sway whenever ghosts are about
stay the shadows in crisp winged
victors, sisters, stab you like an
invisible twin, strips
two steps into some
random oblivion
like an old
skin.

Father's Day 2016

'Father's Day', Digital Type, 2016

666th Entry! Cats For Satan!

Talk About....The Past

Just a short entry on some of my creative shenanigans from the past.

 League of Sapphistry: An imaginary organization, started by Tasha, with a focus on a primarily lesbian-focused political agenda, with graphics by me. (see photo)

Border Patrol:  Fictitious design group; created to do larger projects where I roped other designers or technicians into the process for professional reasons. Still Working, technically.

KALX Commercials:  In 2004, I worked for 6 months as an intern, alongside Tasha, at KALX Radio Berkeley. While there, in additional to reshelving hundreds of records, I produced three airtime commercials for radio, political programming and event listings using the on-site pro-tools facilities at UC Berkeley. The ads aired roughly 12-15 times a week during peak hours.

Slideshow Test II