Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
last leg
“Is that a drink?
No, it’s a band my mom went to see in concert”
-Amtrak 1:16am nearing Sacramento Ca.
Train 3 hours late, arrived in Oakland at 12:45am.
four old men, all with the same, top of a button mushroom-like hairstyle, old-sun-stained lace in color, sporting wiry yellow-white neck beards, black suspenders and copper-rimmed glasses the size of a tumbler glasses, filed into the dining car and spoke an unknown dialect. They were heading to Pennsylvania, I later found out by Eric, the snack car attendant who was wearing a nice, simple watch who joked with me about Mad Child from Vancouver. The old men were danish speaking amish going home.
Had a mimosa and breakfast in the dining car while circling mount shasta at sunrise, while passing a town called Dunsmuir where all the cars in sight were circa 1950’s, and mostly matte black.
There were many times where I had to restrain myself from prying open the emergency exit window to escape into the untouched forests that traversed crystal clear waters and a ripe pink sky.
I am saddened to leave a lifestyle where you wake up and you know everything you do will be different and unforeseen events will arise as you make your way through untried country. I will also miss the mexican food.
No, it’s a band my mom went to see in concert”
-Amtrak 1:16am nearing Sacramento Ca.
Train 3 hours late, arrived in Oakland at 12:45am.
four old men, all with the same, top of a button mushroom-like hairstyle, old-sun-stained lace in color, sporting wiry yellow-white neck beards, black suspenders and copper-rimmed glasses the size of a tumbler glasses, filed into the dining car and spoke an unknown dialect. They were heading to Pennsylvania, I later found out by Eric, the snack car attendant who was wearing a nice, simple watch who joked with me about Mad Child from Vancouver. The old men were danish speaking amish going home.
Had a mimosa and breakfast in the dining car while circling mount shasta at sunrise, while passing a town called Dunsmuir where all the cars in sight were circa 1950’s, and mostly matte black.
There were many times where I had to restrain myself from prying open the emergency exit window to escape into the untouched forests that traversed crystal clear waters and a ripe pink sky.
I am saddened to leave a lifestyle where you wake up and you know everything you do will be different and unforeseen events will arise as you make your way through untried country. I will also miss the mexican food.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
slept under a plasic fern, tropics, had a moving pathway as white noise for a whole two hours i slept, or rather passed out. i made it to san francisco though.
I had to go to denver from kansas city first, and then wait for the delayed plane. but i am here. i called every hotel, hostel and motel in the city upon arrival, but everything was full.
my psyche is doing contractions squeezing out lemonade, my eyes are bloodshot to the brim, the veins are almost hanging out of my sockets, and my teeth and mouth are like a kitchen sink drain. my fingernails even grew long, how long has it been?
all i want now is some kale and sleep. ive been eating bread and airplane cookies.
listening to al green loudly on headphones in the food court at 5:15am.
have to admit i am happy and excited.
I had to go to denver from kansas city first, and then wait for the delayed plane. but i am here. i called every hotel, hostel and motel in the city upon arrival, but everything was full.
my psyche is doing contractions squeezing out lemonade, my eyes are bloodshot to the brim, the veins are almost hanging out of my sockets, and my teeth and mouth are like a kitchen sink drain. my fingernails even grew long, how long has it been?
all i want now is some kale and sleep. ive been eating bread and airplane cookies.
listening to al green loudly on headphones in the food court at 5:15am.
have to admit i am happy and excited.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
((trapped again in Kansas city. ))
no hangover, and no rain.
wander into DUMBO to Brooklyn Roasters for a free cupping of their beans. They have a five gallon bodum. They have used it once and its hard to pour. Bookstore, flip through a signed edition of Family Business by photographer Mitch Epstein, it sells on amazon for $350. I should have bought it for $125, but alas. Go into Chelsea to see some commercial galleries, but they are all closed for the summer/bummer. Run into Vince Aletti the curator, writer, and eccentric guy at New York Burger eating sweet potoato french fries in basil pesto sauce.
Walk over to Printed Matter Inc. A store dedicated to artist publications! Filled with zines, records, photobooks, and more! I've been here, but I really looked around this time around.
Take the subway through the heart of Brooklyn to the very edge to Coney Island. Words cannot describe this place. It was the best way to end our trip to New York. Lets just say I saw alligators, vomit, a fully tattooed woman, bellybutton lint sculptures, toenail jewelery, carnies, sunsets, food under heat lamps, and screaming people. Rode the 90 year old historic wonderwheel.
Woke up at 4am to an unmarked taxi cab that sped some 70mph to la guardia in 15 minutes. We were passing every car on the road.
I got on a standby flight first class to Kansas City just to get out of la guardia, its terrible. Sat next to a very nice woman who finished the New York Times Crossword in less than one hour. It was called "What Ails Ya". But now I am stranded again. I may just break down and buy a ticket to San Francisco and stay in a Super 8.
out and I need to walk around.
no hangover, and no rain.
wander into DUMBO to Brooklyn Roasters for a free cupping of their beans. They have a five gallon bodum. They have used it once and its hard to pour. Bookstore, flip through a signed edition of Family Business by photographer Mitch Epstein, it sells on amazon for $350. I should have bought it for $125, but alas. Go into Chelsea to see some commercial galleries, but they are all closed for the summer/bummer. Run into Vince Aletti the curator, writer, and eccentric guy at New York Burger eating sweet potoato french fries in basil pesto sauce.
Walk over to Printed Matter Inc. A store dedicated to artist publications! Filled with zines, records, photobooks, and more! I've been here, but I really looked around this time around.
Take the subway through the heart of Brooklyn to the very edge to Coney Island. Words cannot describe this place. It was the best way to end our trip to New York. Lets just say I saw alligators, vomit, a fully tattooed woman, bellybutton lint sculptures, toenail jewelery, carnies, sunsets, food under heat lamps, and screaming people. Rode the 90 year old historic wonderwheel.
Woke up at 4am to an unmarked taxi cab that sped some 70mph to la guardia in 15 minutes. We were passing every car on the road.
I got on a standby flight first class to Kansas City just to get out of la guardia, its terrible. Sat next to a very nice woman who finished the New York Times Crossword in less than one hour. It was called "What Ails Ya". But now I am stranded again. I may just break down and buy a ticket to San Francisco and stay in a Super 8.
out and I need to walk around.
currently trapped at la guardia gate B3, missed three flights, booked.
MoMA was a flash mob that looked more like shopping mall during boxing day than a world renowned modern art gallery featuring the world's greatest art collection. shuffling down escalators, flowing by duchamps in a flow of people, passing all the works that i've spent the passed two years studying in short glimpses, mostly obstructed by hands holding iphones and headsets reiterating the artists statement in every language. in a near panic, I meet up with cody to go for lunch.
get to central park and are now encircled in large black flies while we eat our warm prepackaged trader joes greek salad. at least we are out of the crowds. I think if I had to go down fifth avenue on a daily basis I would wear a robe of rubber snakes, or cover myself in powdered sugar to get people out of my way as I walked steadily down the street.
Go to the Central Park Zoo, its really old, to get away from the crowds and attempt to reconnect with nature. People are seen posing, pretending to put their arms around a snow leopard that sits behind a thick layer of, hopefully one way glass. It was the same way at MoMA, why do people pose in front of famous or strange things, like a Pollack or a Picasso with their thumbs up? They only recognize the paintings from tote bags sold at shopping centers around the continent. Or they don't even see the work in real time, through their own eyes, but through a computer screen that inherently brightens, contrasts and alters life.
buy the Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin at the MoMA bookstore.
We walk across the Brooklyn Bridge into DUMBO (Down under the Manhattan bridge overpass).
Find a great mexican place order long island ice teas. an older puerto rican woman, we name Rosa, is our amazing waitress. She randomly asks Cody if she liked French dressing, we aren't eating a salad. I question them about a particular mexican traditional drink on their menu, no one knows what it is, so they google on their phones, saying if anyone orders it they usually tell the customers they are out of it. Great and cheap place.
Walk down the street to a gastropub, order a beer pronounced Cezzane, like the painter, but is spelled Season. Its made of grains of paradise and is ruby red and delicious. We don't know what an old fashioned is, so we order it because its the only drink I can think of, and we both ask what it is after its put in front of us. terrible stuff they are though, like a candy store long forgotten since the 1800s where all the sweets have been fermenting and stewing in large teak cabinets.
drink another beer in a G8 summit sculpture under the Brooklyn Bridge, all the personalities are there, en replica, but are three feet tall sitting cross legged in the grass. I only recognize Obama and Harper.
Subway to Brooklyn Heights around midnight monday find a place selling cheap eats and beers on a huge patio with umbrellas. I order a catfish taco, Cody, a hot dog. We then see people carrying these corn-like cobbed delicacies around. We order them too and devour them. I find out they are corn cobbs dipped in butter, then mayonnaise, then mexican cheese, cayene pepper and cilantro. Geeze! Oh and beers were only $2.00 for a Brooklyn IPA! Where can I get this in Vancouver?
no roaches tonight.
(Back to real time)
Children coughing, my bladder filling, been awake since 4am. Cody is in Kansas City. America is run on Dunkin. I hope I make it to San Francisco today.
wish me luck.
MoMA was a flash mob that looked more like shopping mall during boxing day than a world renowned modern art gallery featuring the world's greatest art collection. shuffling down escalators, flowing by duchamps in a flow of people, passing all the works that i've spent the passed two years studying in short glimpses, mostly obstructed by hands holding iphones and headsets reiterating the artists statement in every language. in a near panic, I meet up with cody to go for lunch.
get to central park and are now encircled in large black flies while we eat our warm prepackaged trader joes greek salad. at least we are out of the crowds. I think if I had to go down fifth avenue on a daily basis I would wear a robe of rubber snakes, or cover myself in powdered sugar to get people out of my way as I walked steadily down the street.
Go to the Central Park Zoo, its really old, to get away from the crowds and attempt to reconnect with nature. People are seen posing, pretending to put their arms around a snow leopard that sits behind a thick layer of, hopefully one way glass. It was the same way at MoMA, why do people pose in front of famous or strange things, like a Pollack or a Picasso with their thumbs up? They only recognize the paintings from tote bags sold at shopping centers around the continent. Or they don't even see the work in real time, through their own eyes, but through a computer screen that inherently brightens, contrasts and alters life.
buy the Ballad of Sexual Dependency by Nan Goldin at the MoMA bookstore.
We walk across the Brooklyn Bridge into DUMBO (Down under the Manhattan bridge overpass).
Find a great mexican place order long island ice teas. an older puerto rican woman, we name Rosa, is our amazing waitress. She randomly asks Cody if she liked French dressing, we aren't eating a salad. I question them about a particular mexican traditional drink on their menu, no one knows what it is, so they google on their phones, saying if anyone orders it they usually tell the customers they are out of it. Great and cheap place.
Walk down the street to a gastropub, order a beer pronounced Cezzane, like the painter, but is spelled Season. Its made of grains of paradise and is ruby red and delicious. We don't know what an old fashioned is, so we order it because its the only drink I can think of, and we both ask what it is after its put in front of us. terrible stuff they are though, like a candy store long forgotten since the 1800s where all the sweets have been fermenting and stewing in large teak cabinets.
drink another beer in a G8 summit sculpture under the Brooklyn Bridge, all the personalities are there, en replica, but are three feet tall sitting cross legged in the grass. I only recognize Obama and Harper.
Subway to Brooklyn Heights around midnight monday find a place selling cheap eats and beers on a huge patio with umbrellas. I order a catfish taco, Cody, a hot dog. We then see people carrying these corn-like cobbed delicacies around. We order them too and devour them. I find out they are corn cobbs dipped in butter, then mayonnaise, then mexican cheese, cayene pepper and cilantro. Geeze! Oh and beers were only $2.00 for a Brooklyn IPA! Where can I get this in Vancouver?
no roaches tonight.
(Back to real time)
Children coughing, my bladder filling, been awake since 4am. Cody is in Kansas City. America is run on Dunkin. I hope I make it to San Francisco today.
wish me luck.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
early, dark thunderstorms. lightning through the cracked curtain. mug quivered off the air conditioner unit smashing a glass of stale water. Dreams of long cement driveways in the suburbs with black dogs running every which way. Morning, pouring sopping rain, everything slow moving and soaked. Williamsburg streets, read about Rosanne Barr's anarchist nut farm in Hawaii and her attempts at running for President in 2012. She will make war illegal, marijuana legal, she states,
"Whatever I can't figure out, I'll get from big experts at MIT—people that have answers. I want 100 percent geniuses, no lobbyists. And 53 percent women, to reflect the character of the country. Also a lot of poor people. I'm thinking of voting an entirely new government in rather than be part of our crumbling, rotting, unfixable one."
Watched a woman with two legs as thin as train rails and very well groomed man standing and continuously drinking espresso after espresso and smoking a fresh package of Marlboros.
Cody and I wonder into an empty Indian Restaurant. A long hallway of a place with rose pink tablecloths, plastic pink chrysanthemums in plastic vases and pink napkins folded like turrets on each empty table setting. The waiter was always a stone-throw away with a pitcher of water filling my metal goblet after every sip.
The rain has started to seep into the subway stations from cracks in the ceiling, there is a river of brown chocolate colored water rushing over the tracks. workers are sweeping water into the tracks with brooms.
Triple shot of coffee under several globes floating in space at Atlas Triple Shot Cafe. Read and relax.
Kill another roach scurrying on the exposed brick wall.
"Whatever I can't figure out, I'll get from big experts at MIT—people that have answers. I want 100 percent geniuses, no lobbyists. And 53 percent women, to reflect the character of the country. Also a lot of poor people. I'm thinking of voting an entirely new government in rather than be part of our crumbling, rotting, unfixable one."
Watched a woman with two legs as thin as train rails and very well groomed man standing and continuously drinking espresso after espresso and smoking a fresh package of Marlboros.
Cody and I wonder into an empty Indian Restaurant. A long hallway of a place with rose pink tablecloths, plastic pink chrysanthemums in plastic vases and pink napkins folded like turrets on each empty table setting. The waiter was always a stone-throw away with a pitcher of water filling my metal goblet after every sip.
The rain has started to seep into the subway stations from cracks in the ceiling, there is a river of brown chocolate colored water rushing over the tracks. workers are sweeping water into the tracks with brooms.
Triple shot of coffee under several globes floating in space at Atlas Triple Shot Cafe. Read and relax.
Kill another roach scurrying on the exposed brick wall.
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