12.29.2003

[Post Originally Untitled]

When, in the morning after the first day of the opium binge, the eyes finally open and the pain is bearable enough to focus on the time, life seems such a surprise.

The only relief is that day two of the opium binge is soon to begin.

The pain is the pleasure; at least in its symbiotic relationship.

The mundane becomes the profound. The senses open like hanger doors.

Merry Christmas.


[y’all driving Subarus and working in cubicles]

11.21.2003

"Sports, when played passionately and intelligently, are great a great thing
to watch and experience. Especially when performed by those who are the
best at what they do. We rise above the basic necessities of daily life
(food, shelter, protection from enemies, and the meaningless passing of
time) to a heightened state similar to that caused by great music or great
art. At their crudest, sports provide distraction and tribal identity (like
pop music). At their best, they provide transcendence. Sports, like art,
dance, or music are a uniquely human expression, initially meaningless in
product or outcome. The meaning (and value) of sports is a function of
careful study on the part of both the performer and observer and like art,
dance, or music, transforms from meaningless brush strokes, tones, or motion
into something greater.

The game you watched last night is the sum of all basketball games that came
before it. The pinnacle of human expression through basketball.

I'm sure the same can be said for NASCAR. I'm just not studied enough. And
I belong to the wrong tribe.

Time for lunch."

-Rich Walkling 11.21.03

11.14.2003

"Dying is easier when unconscious."

- ty hardaway, November 14, 2003
- stolen from Jon Baty, November 14, 2003


Two consecutive pages of useful information
Confirming and disappointing consecutively

Of theories toward brain-machine interfaces
And smart relief from severe and chronic pains

Focus the minds on intelligent goals
With unimportant but highly imaginative colleagues

We can agree that the time has come
For cognitive coups and invisible acquisitions

A society parallel and unequal
Simple and vigorous can indeed exist

Without feature-creep or worrisome expenses
Of spirit, integrity, creativity or hair loss

Queen for a day or pawn for a lifetime
White full-length faux fur or rumpled worn oxford

Human reliability analyses with weak probabilities
Only conceptualize the obvious

Long and technical papers to recapitulate
Our instinctual demise as a species
Though sunsets are keenly
embedded in my chronology
I am growing more tolerant and appreciative
of the inspirational values of rising suns
in the easting part of our continent

Living life like death wishes
Fighting battles for origins unknown
Building legacies out of
"conflicting tastes"

Making a difference is hard when
I'm still making up my mind
Clouds shading clouds
and the times we had, baby

From up here
So much seems unimportant
Simplicity and satisfaction from within
Are ultimate rewards

11.03.2003

Halloween at the Oakland International Airport

I.
We've got to step outside ourselves
in order to be ourselves
Since we cannot rely on anyone
other than ourselves
to save ourselves

II.
Libido burrito
Flat long and wide
Like the Oakland airport
Chrome accents and high heels
Extra large oddly proportioned breasts
We're all in costumes anyway everyday

III.
Living in my own customized world
Insulated from real contact
with glasses, hats and socks
Personal electronics help the tweak

IV.
Ground zeros still exist
soundtracks of personal "Live Events"
of smokes, clones and flesh
Living on parallel planes
Automatically rotating human scenery

V.
Scoring quite low on
the evaluative scale
from one to infinity
Memories of the day
taste of human skin --
The white girls
Definitely the white girls

VI.
I am convinced sometimes
That my life is nearing its end
Short, squat and useless
Bored and afraid of the freaks
who possess all the real power
And who force the wealthy meek
to react with little or no love

VII.
Costume or not
Angles are all right (toward perfect)
I think I love you
Because love is one standard deviation from lust
And since that's our only real duty
or is it my sanity that's in question?

VIII.
Simple truths
and purity
Why is it that
The intelligent people of my cohurt
Are so unsatisfied with working

The flattering burden of the hunt for
"Quality of life"
Deconstruction of deconstruction

String theory applied to the psyche
Relative to nothingness indeed
Just what happened directly prior to the Big Bang?

Points smaller than points
The space that contains space

No aspirations for ambition anymore
Emphasis on legacy and end games
Leaky and stuttering creakily about

Back to Work

Back to work adventures

We learn slow
Rock and roll Marcus
Marcus is crazy
Tap-tap drumming
Leonard Hoffman taught me these chords
Jamie Perez taught me how to love
At the cat Box

Waiting to swim to the surface of all these wires
Rolled by the system
Intellectual challenges posed by the inquiry
This is a waste of our time
Do you understand where I'm coming from?

"Shit, motherfucking yeah, by the Sexy Motherfuckers."
Theoretical airflow and heat propagation
Intellectually arrogant
Get your baby
You don't know my name
Not trying hard
I don't wear
fashionable clothes
nor do I have
much of an image
to manage or protect

[stinky cheese girls of thematic decorating black pants and cheap black boots]
[goatees and laptops]
Porcelain dodgers
tics and all
blows noses on linen
is not big but knows how small

Artificial existentialism
of powerpoint schemes
made up and dressed up
representative of dreams

Four stars of luxury
finely woven cloths
cellular communications name badges
narrowly followed swathes

Groups and individuals
solo spinning souls
crashing like galaxies
into small suburban 'toon holes
Five rules for living:

1. Be born an artist

2. Anti-structure; coincidence, nonlinear time

3. The inciting incident

4. Everyone takes turns rescuing everyone else

5. Tidy the little pieces


"Life is saturated with dread because you know you're going to die."
I have this recurring dream about elevators usually in very tall buildings.

The frustrations always escalates as the buttons either mislead the passengers - misdirected us to the wrong floors - or the car is so rickety that one fears for life and sanity.

These dreams are generally so similar that it could be one life-long series (saga).

I don't recall even exiting the elevator cars, but always there is hope of a clever and safe exit.
Tiny bird hovering
without knowledge of horrors
innocent of crimes
Shiny brass buttons
dangle from cuts of blue wool
quick hop back in time
I am in a costume of self-hate

10.07.2003

Tiny images of vast emptiness(es)
Obsessively compulsively spinning in doomed circles
Thoughts wander without purpose nor focus
If it is a leisurely life sought
prepare for hard work ahead

Barters for coffee
Punishment for tea
It's good to live inland
For fear of the sea

Looking upwards to a pinprick of light
Waiting waiting for events foretold
By passing gypsies and assorted pickpockets
Concurrent wearing and aging and dying too
A depression as wide as deep

10.03.2003

Just too much anxiety over
Desperation emanating from every pore
Frozen with promise of human rites
Which are human wrongs consequently

9.26.2003

I used to attract moths
Shushing roomfuls of characters
Snapping necks of barking dogs
Chaos quelled like a deity
To simplify
Reducing things to fundamental elements
But – as with all things human – where
Are lines drawn?
Who minds the limits
Who minds boundaries

Endless analyses and questioning
Antithesis of simplicity and
Complication’s very bestest pal – collaborators

Much more organic than synthesized
The two over the one
Water dripping onto black holes
And kicking at clouds

Batteries on last legs
Despite myths of desperate
Last ditch surges
Simplicity of the end of conservation
To be among the family again
The comfort in knowledge of affinity
So eager the tears – welling
My only mistakes are in timing as always
But the wonderment is worth the waiting
Subtle like eyebrows feet or thighs

Panache spilling over authentic
Able to be only myself without act
Sadness temporarily interrupted by life real
Interrupted by the time moving forward
Awakening mid afternoon in time for teas
Open except inside my secured fortress

The kids today…
Will they know what I know ever?
What I will never know?
Is recapitulation and endless loop of
Stills wound fast – a horse in full gallop?

The edge of caffeine-induced vomit
In a former grand ballroom painted
With cheap green and furnished
With thrift store furniture

Middlespace is a half-eaten carrot cake
For instance or the doubts of matter

Again my time is expiring here
The meter running out – alarms sounding
And the sadness will return (sigh)

Accept
Or
Stop
Another day without harm
About as big as your finger
Bleeding in and out of lucid beliefs
All the while feeling superiorly unimportant

Pathetically desperate for validation
And drowning in the ooze
Of the taste for human meats
A thing for the soft tissues and large muscles

After some coffee and some time alone
And the customary dredge for muck
A deep dank still sleep with the
Promise for rebirth awaiting

Being so full so quickly after
Being so empty so long after
Neither caring nor wanting
Is generally - and surprisingly - shocking to the system

An acceptance of selves satisfied
With sins and baggage forgiven
Peace and relief are identical twins
Joined at palms with hearts beating in unison

And there is still reason to live

This is Random

Random ovals

[Previously Untitled]

Again with the thoughts
Haven’t you learned anything?
Seeping faux genius

Wandering focus
Internal conversations
Over Iowa

Of love and passion
Mean spirited interplay
Narrow shallow lives and lies

Wrong turns at junctions
Continuous debriefings
When is enough enough?

Volcanoes in clouds
Retirement is never safe
The pace is deadly

To finish my thoughts
Over the mid-western plains
Free beer and pretzels
Heightened senses of awareness
Paranoia mediated by instincts

The depths are still frightening
Drill-down to situations not of our control
Or, maybe it's really getting scarier yet, the world

Or maybe experience teaches
Circumstances change perspectives
Evolution occurs regardless

Imagination, being what it is, has
Powerful effects on perceptions
And vice versa

The nature of things
You know, stuff, you know

Clarity is a motherfucker
Befuddling is likewise

Sharp pointy things
Running amok

Distillation is key
Simpler elemental thinking
"The California protagonist belongs to no establishment, a born renegade fond of mocking the shabby masquerades (of traffic courts and dictionaries and jails) with which the corrupt officials in city hall or Chinatown seek to imprison the noble savage dreamed of in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau."

- Lewis H. Lapham
From National Airport

Oh, to be a
supplier of cheap blue
size 54 suits in DC
now-a-days

(i'd be one rich man in the party of huah)
Triplets in my head
Pills on my mind
Politics in my brain

Although dreams from two days ago
Have begun to fade
Still I am horrified at the
Depth, detail and genius
of places I went that night

A warren of art, magic and passion
Webs of storyboard images spun
From molten metals
Like cartoon spiders answering God

Of smokes and touches
Wary interpretations of
How things should be
versus how they are

The point of decompression
Can only be found in the memories
Of dreams to make reality envious
If my brain can do that
I prefer sleeping

9.03.2003

As my daughter begins to more fully interact with this world and she begins to show personal preferences, I realize that some day she will completely embrace her life as her own, rejecting external controls and dependency structures of her parents.

She will march to the tune of her own motorcycle.

How do I know? I fully rejected my parents at seventeen, moved out and never really looked back in any substantive manner. But, until now, I never realized that on the other side, from the parental perspective, the hurt that was probably inflicted. Being the center of your personal universe for so long results in lost opportunities; lost potential of an unselfish kind.

Whether it’s when she decides to venture to Costa Rica when she’s fourteen or when she heads off to college (or the circus, for that matter), the emptiness will come suddenly and deeply. Sure, maybe she may spend holidays with us, but she will develop her own world where we are but minor components. If we get the weekly call, we will cherish like life itself. Then I will be able to die alone and afraid, surrounded by strangers.

They all say, “enjoy it while it lasts” because it won’t last forever.

Nothing does.

8.29.2003

okay, answer me this?

i was bored at work (oh, shocking!) so i somehow found myself at Afrodavid.

i haven't been there (or, been THERE) in some time.

am i crazy? or, am i genius?

i needs to gets back to my art.

some stuff i do scares me.

8.25.2003

The Nostalgia of Light

I noticed it, unofficially, a couple weeks ago. It was just a moment in an otherwise miserable day. But with this weekend behind, we are now in what I’m calling the nostalgic days. The air is light and the light is airy. The sky has returned to a deep unnatural blue from its vacation of milky, humid opaque. Autumn is being phased in again.

During nostalgic days the brain remembers that autumn is a time of invigorating bliss; when the cool air returns and the mosquitoes die. The shadows deepen, mornings are dark and everything becomes all contrast-y again. Breathing becomes easy and life’s woes subside. The leaves change from an overly officious uniformity of greens to a masquerade ball of individualism and whimsy that culminates in Halloween and death. In autumn, we snuggle again. We mow the fields one last time and we ride out the slide into darkness and productivity.

The threat and misery of winter is well over the horizon. The beleaguered days of the mid-Atlantic summer fades like a bad memory. Fortunately for the humans, the memories of pain are never keen. In January, we’ll all pray for July again. The shoulders, autumn and spring, make living in the east worthwhile. The monotony of hundreds of perfect California days, while glorious, faints into the background of being.

I’ve grown to appreciate the work involved in the long march to the shoulders.
Sometimes, and it doesen't matter where, if it itches enough, you just have to reach around and scratch your ass.

- thought on Woodmont Ave.

8.19.2003

Today - and, oddly, it was confirmed by all the machines - was a day of twos. Twos were everywhere. The metaphor; symbols; codes; ciphers; patterns. There was no escaping the omen. It was as clear as identical twins.

Dyad. Pair. Deuce. Dub. Dos. Twin. Both. 2. Too. A basketball shot. The peace sign. Yin/yang. Congress. Coasts. Couple. Feet. Hands. Eyes. Ears. Nostrils. Testicles. Breasts. Nipples. Knees. Clap. Stereo.

Unfortunately, obviously, I haven't made any connections yet.

8.11.2003

My...

Today's been a real education.

History intersecting with future.

Oh, my...

8.06.2003

People take vacations to the Mall of America. It's surrounded by hotels of every ilk; from the swanky to the seedy. The mall itself, from the outside is one ugly hulk of parking garages and angles. Half-assed landscaping and American flags. Shuttle buses rush backing and forthing to any of the four main entrances; old, fat, pasty white middle Americans - and their cookie cutter MTV/X-Games/hip-hop offspring depart empty handed and embark with bags from all the stores you find at any of the other seventeen million malls found from sea to shining silver dollar.

Inside, it's the most depressing place I've ever been. Worse than any two-bit casino in Reno or Atlantic City. Worse even than river boat casinos in East St. Louis. Mall of America is a big mall. Five levels. Amusement park. Gap. Victoria Secret. It's a big "So what." I took my camera to maybe get some killer black and whites of old, fat, pasty white middle Americans - and their cookie cutter MTV/X-Games/hip-hop offspring...shopping. I took no pictures.

Yeah, personal shop-bots. Teen to twenties bleach-blonds to smile broadly and pace your personal shopping experience. You book an hour, shop-bots help you shop forever. The exits aren't marked. Why bother leaving if you still have money or haven't maxed out your thirty-two credit cards that you were pre-approved for sometime back when? Don't forget the food court.
I'm kinda hungry.

8.05.2003

Dearest Rich,

You see, I love your Ween.

It's always been hard for me because I've always considered Ween to be your band. Like in any relationship, individuals bring something in. Flatware, CDs, the VCR, a dog, nipple clamps, etc. You always shared Ween, but it was always somehow yours to share. Then one day, I took your Ween out for a spin and fell in love with your Ween.

You never complained and even graciously encouraged me to snort your Ween. But, I always felt a bit guilty. You know...awkward. I didn't want to schnebble all your Ween or nothin', but once I ate one, I couldn't stop.

So, thanks for letting me smoke all your Ween, sucka. I keeping it all for myself and not giving any back.

Your pal,

-tyrone

P.S. Fuck!

8.04.2003

When I hear young children cry
I’m saddened to a core place – biologically
Weakened in unimaginable ways

I miss my family
My reason to breathe
And take all these pills
Like I miss my innocence



fucking angels in my head
the madness of the obvious

07.31.03

The production-consumption ration
Still unsettled after all these decades
Intense weight on psyches
And fatigue on internal components

Dreams
As black as void
As white as all
As dead as nothing
As past as history

Since it is always fiction
Contrived since inception
To be feared when not ignored
Reality is the real god

True as truth
One-quarter of a beat ahead
With full commitment realized
Blissfully floating above human topography

07.31.03

what is whole is
contingent of personal glossary entries
if space is time

experienced through spot lighted
cargo holds of hurling humans
eastward-bound together coincidentally

mind’s eye memories of hallucinations
but beautiful symmetry nonetheless
perfect logic clearly communicated

yeah, I’m terrified too
but, unfortunately, this is what we left you
if you can remedy, please

07.31.03

Prolog:

Walking sticks for a modern age
Skateboard shoes to mark my rage
Undercover mainstream tax-paying yellow belly
Forgetting at all to remember my age

Body:

Taking for granted the walking and talking
I kiss the rig of gods and
Try to put aside speculation of
Variants of fate without much success

What would change?

Often I awake to new realities
In different places alone or
Trapped in the prisons of mind or body
Empathy to a degree of unbelievable proportions

A hot, persistent, dry wind
Under blue skies in places
Where our society has created
Drawers in which we can
Hide all that appears to be untidy

Epilog:

Steely persistence after all the tears

07.31.03

You cannot help what's in your nature
Ahh, jah Rasta man sing-song life
From Damascus to Kashmir
Will I become so wholly eccentric
and woefully low self-monitoring?

Consequences of vanity run amok
With no restraints tied to ego
Or class or career

Just as long as I remember
To wear pants on a daily basis
And remain mindful of clichés and
Refrain from singing aloud too often

Since it was all over even
Before it all began
My efforts can be relieved
Of the burden of giving
A rat’s ass
Minnesota Blue(s) 07.30-31.03

Dying
All inside going deeper now
Heros not what they used to be
Drooling wizards of the north star state
Trapped like visitors to new planets

Shopping
With heads buried in sands
Sanctioned by the president and the other Hitlers
My very worst enemy a codependent me
Wanting without the why-ing

Bleeding
All ideas opinions beliefs creativity
From my anus
When the toilets do not flush
And snacks are forbidden in this motel

Hiding
From the masses of truths
Of the reinvented American century
Only to awake alone and sweaty
And so fundamentally detached

Running
Concentric circles around the
Moon and the sun so red
Suicide and chronic depression are
Only theater for drama queens

7.24.2003

God Bless Me?! 07.21.03

Is it not you
So young and impressionable
Supple and porous
Glaring at me with
That glazed one-yard stare?

Hypnotized with promises
Of eternal life
Wings, harps and visits with dearly departed grandma
Always absolutely right AND
Correct beyond debate

A mere child looking down
Your nose with pity
At what has to be
A heathen of the grandest scale
Me beyond belief

Untitled 06.23.03

Long ago I realized just how truly
Pathetic I am
We all are

I have been at the paramount JUST long enough
And JUST enough times that I know what I’m missing

It goes way back – to the day
Lives of self-censored lies

What is real happens to be real

Although I try to live I ultimately
Fail time and time again to fulfill potential

But now I no longer care


Deconstruction 06.23.03

When it starts to break down
It really snowballs from here
From outside outliers to the inner circles
of questionable deal making and promises broken
To that filthy coating of oils and sins
that tends to cover you from neck to knee

When it starts to break down
It really flows like lava with
relentless power and electricity
Pretensions balanced on delicate fulcrums
Played pop hits of the retro ages
I have become like the recipient of spewed venom

We bring me here for checks
And balances proves far from simple
Nothing is ever simple anymore
Even sleep proves elusive
I feel the effects of mileage

I have to be near the end of lines
Like water that appears to very flat
When all along it is so round
And endless
like nightmares

7.11.2003

tonight
i saw
this year's
first
firefly

6.30.2003

Filthy fingers of newsprint and recycled contaminants
Mind blindingly void of thoughts of merit
Dirty. Everything so post-pristine
Indictments of our inner souls

Of god and money and choices hard
And exclusive of peace intra or extra
When did religion and government incorporate?

One would have predicted (from here)
That clarity and simplicity would prevail
Yet only awe-struck bewilderment at
Self-imposed complexities are evident

Confusion over time is exponential
Experience loads the burden of morality

Logic and history suggest a vicious defeat
Punishment for our collective self-contempt
Even the old guy said it is the end of time
Yet my maso-optimism borders on despair

I lie awake in wonder and anticipation

6.20.2003

waiting for the light
donkey and the might
heros in the fight
it all results in night

we waste our lonely need
in pools of wasted seed
the people did not feed
to pad our lives with greed

6.09.2003

Found the following note - in 14-point Times New Roman - today:

Boss,

F.Y.I. The following accounts are negative balance--supplies, ac heat, tv, furniture and fixtures, light bulbs




4.28.2003

Yep. That IS interesting stuff. "The journey" is always fabulously interesting.
Global stuff is great, but so is the US spectrum of "journey."

Whether it is the original or subsequent populating of the continent or the migration forks - south to north - of the Mexicans or former slave blacks.

Then, there are the personal journeys. Nepal to Chicago; Los Angeles to Gaithersburg.

The Journey.
epiphanies over manhattan
boston deserted save cabbies and runners
spring on the river charles

3-D models and the grids of brooklyn...queens
and the spilled coffee on my feet
i discovered the beauty of this swamp

how do you fly this damn thing

4.25.2003

Klein broke half the rules of photography and ignored the other half, and when he first published his pictures, he offended nearly everyone.
Yeah, I know I have tables due. Tables. Appendicies. Data.

But, I got stuck on the Tori Spelling website. Then, it was a natural progression to Jennie Garth. Then Peter Facinelli.

God, I do hate myself.


4.04.2003

Losing your home
Like losing your mind
Leaves the memory damaged
Recall analogous to silvery colanders

Images roughly similar
But surprisingly different
The way illuminated
Like dreams

The homeless mayor
Of cities past and present
Lost and anonymous
Amid successors anew

Going back is never an option

3.27.2003

"For their materials, for the art world, for school, for the macrocosm of art school. I mean, schools to show you how to be an artist? What the hell is that?"


"The artists I like are the ones who have done their work in secret who have been secretly and quietly doing something. They have work that would be difficult to sell or even show -- they have that purity...you have to go into people's secret diaries and get them to show you things they're afraid to show."

-Joseph Mills

3.26.2003


Sometimes in dreams, do you take on other physical properties. Are you ever made of a variety of plastics?

3.07.2003


Sex life
Art life
Death life

3.06.2003

today
i was thinking
about art

3.05.2003

Senate Study Explains Spike in Oil Prices

do you remember my ramblings back in the corner days about the "great petroleum wars?" about how the oil companies would become the government - distinctions blurred.

you know, back in the days when we believed we predicted the future.

3.04.2003

Welcome to the White House

Perfect Pornography
Propaganda Perpetrators
Pandering Profits

2.24.2003

"I've liked taking drugs for a good long while and it's pretty much always, apart from the few freakouts, been really valuable on the level of this kind of responsiveness to place.... Of course, you can just mess it up. I'm quite drawn to the confusion that drug use can lead to.... That in itself provides insight into a contemporary malaise."
-Geoff Dyer
The birds are starting to come back. And thank goodness too.
As kids in business suits talk into their hands. An audience indifferent.
Inspiration found in dreams and the middlespaces of not-quite-wakeful moments.
Spring is, well, springing fourth. Slowly, at first, but then at an unbelievable pace.
I kiss the ground I stand upon in thanks for my unbelievable luck and the goodness thrust upon me.

2.21.2003

After all, George Washington was a skilled equestrian. Jefferson called him the best horseman of his age.

2.04.2003

I've been thinking about this for a while
As I drive home, crossing Falls
Democracy becoming Glen

The ancient tombstones peripherally left
Look amazingly like children playing in a park
Never ceases to amaze

1.29.2003

suddenly i realize i don't know anything
or
have any particular skills

how long can i fake it
and
get by on charm and will?

1.02.2003

last night
i had an appendectomy

today is
one-two-three

one eye closed
the other eye crossed

pain is relative
so are experiences and perspectives

shake rhymes with
bake

i wear my scars like
earrings