What a beautiful morning

        I love them. Mornings like this. Crisp cool, a perfect autumn beginnings. I rode my bike over the bridge, some thing that is particularly special, 'cause I just got the bike and am rarely up and at 'em in the morning.
      So much has transpired since last I was able to converse with you senor blog space as I will refer to you now.
      It is interesting to write as often as possible. Many times I try to write and contemplate something that matters to me. But my brain tends to be rather cyclical in this department. I am always trying to make something happen and am generally about three steps behind. So i am trying to stay focused, amp myself up and work it. Then I sit down to write and realize I have the same thoughts propelling me forward. While what I want to write about are the little moments. The spaces in between, where I can find myself both in my life and outside of it as well.
     The world gets crazier with every minute. It becomes even more important to find the space that sets you free. freedom is the ability to be yourself, and to explore into your definition of what that means. The world will only get more complicated, more of a confusing mess, and more violent. Why? We, as in the human race, have created this scene, predominantly dem whit-ees from Europe and the states. Take a long view. Like the martians in a Phillip K. Dick's story. Colonialism still exists under a new name. The boarders of Iraq were drawn up by England after WW1. We have no place in the middle east and yet we have involved ourselves in shaping their history for a hundred years. the mistakes of the generations before us cannot be erased.
     I am not religious, and yet Jesus' words come to mind. "Forgive them, they know not what they do." Maybe there is a Father in there. But it is so true. Escalation in Hong Kong, to the point no one can back down. Another school shooting seemingly every month. In the center of all the violence in the middle east Israel brashly murders to display their might. Ebola runs rampant. Russia is on a mission to reinstate it's aggressive history. Global warming becomes more apparent as storms and droughts rage. And through it all our politicians become more racistly isolationist, power hungry, and just plain ineffectual.
    My generation has inherited this world. I hope we will start to do something serious to attempt to set it right. I am not with great faith, but will continue to dream. And hopefully i can squeeze out some more beautiful mornings to tool around, wheels spinning, as the air flows over my face and into my heart.

sitting in the bus terminal in Columbus.

      I have been in Pittsburgh for the week. I was picked up from the airport by my cousins and taken to my grandmother's compound in Aspinwall. Nuna, as we call my grandmother is a trip. She is an eighty six year old sicilian Jungian phycologist. Her and my grandfather, Papap, owned three brick buildings in a nice neighborhood in Pittsburgh. First of all, Aspinwall, though considered a nice neighborhood always felt like a weird little twighlight light zone trap to me. It is boxed in by highways, and train tracks, and a river. And unless you have a car you literally cannot get out. And there are their three houses, which always remind me of pap, or Tony. Though dead seven years they still house his memory. And may be related to my aunts eagerness to sell them off. Or maybe we just live in a hard time. Tony would be in tears. We were gathered upstairs, in what I would think of as the second building. This is the apartment where Tony died, but when I visited them in my youth they lived next door. In an apartment he renovated to be larger, by building three rooms over a garage port. The room is laid out exactly like the one next to it was. Except here the walls have now been stripped of their photos. The nail holes stand out emphasizing the bareness. But none of this matters, because even though it has been seven years, since Tony's death that this many of the family has been together, it suddenly feels like yesterday. Pap was of Polish and Scottish decent, as I said Nuna was Sicilian. They had five children, four girls and a boy. My aunts and uncle and their spouses love to drink wine and get loud. Their children are not much different, and definitely share that trait. So we were having many conversations, eager to catch up on each other's lives in a manner that made it hard for any one to actually glean anything.
     I need to sidestep this story for a moment. I have been thinking a great deal about our world, about how we exist in it simply to find a way to exist. There are less and less humans who subsist on the planet. And a constantly growing number who have to subsist on the system we have put into place. This, one, lends us to preform jobs that are often not integral to human survival, and allows people who are powerfully stationed in  the system to use the way our society is constructed to their benefit. These are somewhat obvious facts, but they are important to keep in mind when we are considering our own place in society, and when we want to consider changing society in the future.
     I don't usually hazard to think that I could impact the development and course of humanity, and yet in a non ego oriented way it is important to remember that if you ever did have something worth saying, something that does have weight and impact, it would be heard if you were able to say it. And there would be forces to shut you up. Just as those forces have worked to twist, alter, and co opt, many of the important dreamers of our history. It is also important to remember that we have constructed this society for ourselves. Or rather the ancestors of the fortune five hundred club have designed this for them. The point of remembering such a thing is not to hold on to a grudge at the bastards who made this mess. You can do that if you want, but rather to realize that this is our world, and that is does not have to be structured as it is. Yes that is easy to say if you have money and hard if you don't. Ie, dreams are fine for the winners. But in a more intimate way we make decisions all the time. We make judgements all the time, and how often are our thoughts biased by what our society, which is in many ways hostile and cut throat, programed us.
    If there ever is going to be a non violent revolution it will come from inside of us. Our own minds and perspectives will change, as they do all the time. Most notably from generation to generation. But we have to do it consciously. We have to want a better world. And if we really want that. We have to willing to be better. And I am not saying be nicer, be a good samaritan. To be what the world needs. To  take responsibility for our species and it's role on the planet.
    Dammit, I hardly even started talking about my mother's wedding.

broken pieces will never go back together

   Well, spent a week getting ready to fly to Pittsburgh, only to find out the tickets were messed up and I was possibly going to miss my mother's wedding. Since I wasn't there for the first one I intended to make it this time around.
   Going through cha cha changes. My voice is dropping, growing hair where there was not before. Nah, I just wrapping this  up and heading to Eugene after the wedding. Don't know how that will feel, it will either be productive to go back to what is the closest I have to a home right now, or be a distraction. I think I have the mettle and focus right now to weather the laid back small easy going, beer swilling attitude.
    The main thing in my mind is to work on getting shows now, actually. If I start the ball rolling on being an artists, and shifting my image of the place and the places image of me into a full fledged art-tiste. Changing ones image can be a delicate task. One can not force something new on aggressively. And yet, one cannot slip back into old habits. And old friends can make that slide down the rabbit hole look appealing. But when i be painting like a junkie with pigments in his veins, nothing can arrest my development. That's my road. I can feel inspiration brewing.
    That's the way it is. Sometimes you are just in the right space to produce. All I wanna do is smash paint together and smear it on a canvas for all the days. Ain't no one gonna hold me back.
      Bussin' around Eugene should be interesting. Part of me suspects that if I don't find a house to park in I might get broken into. Which is not surprising, simply that after all this time in Portland with out incident.....   But I eat my Wheaties, geared up, and amped on life.
               That was too much. Sounds like some sort of teen warrior, battling inexcusable behavior and poke marked skin. Yeah, insert Judd Nelson fist pump.
       Got to be careful not to unduly psyche myself up here, and then stagnate in the real world.
     I do spend an exorbitant amount of time thinking about mixing paint.
    There is so much to say, don't know why i am stagnating. I have been working on a story. On a world where things are falling apart. And people are loosing it. For a myriad of psychological reasons people are cracking. A world like ours, but where the collective unconscious has reached a boiling point. Disasters are common place, business and food distribution is starting to fail globally. War and disease are rampant. Mainly our world spinning a little more out of orbit. And people start cracking.
   Let's see, weirder than what is actually happening. Maybe someone building their own dirigible, so they can be a floating sniper. We already have drive by's on the white house. I just imagine people flipping out in the streets. Not all violent stuff. Just this sense that the future is fucked, so consequences are not the same. As a global perspective the human spirit is erupting in uncertainty. It gives alot to work with as a story teller. More on this later.
    A guy I know was shot by Woodstock last week. I did not know him well. I did, however, know the guy who was with him. I know we cannot escape violence in this world. But it sucks. People do not deserve to be murdered senselessly. We should not be afraid to go out into the streets. And the wars continue.

first Thursday

   Well it worked. I mean I will have to go back to the drawing board, the handle will have to be lower. What the hell am I talking about. My art cart of course. It is rather simple. Over the winter I needed a way to show my art. So I came up with these two slats of wood that have notches cut out of them, big enough for a painting to slip in and stand upright. That was for my spot on the street during art walk. Then i decided they charged too much and art walk was bullshit. So I lifted up the whole set up and put it on wheels. Put a stand on the back and a handle and away we go. Art Cart. The thing is it is a cumbersome beast that will wear you down after a few blocks, let alone a couple miles. My shoulders are sore. I might of made a sale if I had gotten a space on thirteenth. But I was just fed up with the fifty dollar rental price. I hate the feeling that if I don't make a sale I am fucked.
    Of course I am fucked. But for entirely different reasons. Mainly because I cannot figure out how to speak in ones and zeros.
     I am going to take a wild turn here and discuss my family and why it bums me out. I feel like I cannot talk about my grandfather, because he was so successful and without trying climbed the ladder right into the white house and beyond. Because he was the secretary of education and I did not want to go into massive debt, like my mother, and never went to college myself. You cannot really say a sentence like that and not sound off some family problems alarms. Of course there are problems, but they have been so carefully avoided, that I have to talk around them to explain them.
    I do not wish to complain, that has no place for me on this forum. I wish I could openly embrace the man who had the largest role in my development. A man that was kinder, more caring, selfless, and perceptive them any one else I have met since. You know when you are with some one and the moment just feels special. It feels like time has slowed down and is smiling at you. The here and now is exciting, but in a peaceful way. I miss him dearly.
     But I have a job to do. Paint and survive. Even if I cannot share my memories, I will hold him in my heart. And I will live on, on the quest I have been on in some way since I shook the yoke of family and home. I used to think Grandpa would understand. would know why I choose to struggle down my own path rather then join society and climb the accepted ladder in the accepted way. Now I don't know. I know he would be captivated by the story that I have lived. But he may not understand it. It may not be understandable.

getting ready for first Thursday.

The morning starts with a dew drop. And I knew we had to pull on boot straps. As the concrete climbs around us, I look beyond. To the sky.
    I don't really say much. Even when I disagree with someone and feel like their words are rather stupid. I avoid arguments because when you engage someone to tell them where they are wrong, your ego gets involved. I have seen it countless times. Someone may know better, but the point of question is quickly lost, and the head to head collision of pride and knowledge turns ugly. My father is a theologian, my eldest brother decided he was atheist when he was six and I was two. I don't know if there is a god, I don't know if the CIA killed JFK or bombed the world trade center. The universe is a vast and marvelous place, with amble arguments to support many opinions. That is the nice thing. People all over the world have have vast and unintelligible views and beliefs. To me none of them are wrong. The only thing that is really wrong is when one idea or world view begins to dominate and create one system. I do not care that fast food chains make a killing stuffing americans with low grade food. I do get disappointed when I go to China and see their stores there, replacing traditional culture. I am fundamentally insulted anytime it is apparent people are putting profits above moral obligations.
   And yes, we know the difference between right and wrong. Right? Do the Koch brothers recognize the damage they are doing for profits. I think so. I think these greedy CEO's have created a competitive environment, where their resumés are lists of new ways to take advantage of people and the world. Are they evil, yes. Do they know it? Somewhere in there, but they surround themselves with like criminals. It happens in a lot of groups. I can be a racist bigot when I surround myself with other racist bigots. It is the history of the world. It is also one of the most important revolutions of the information age. That every thing we do and say, could possibly end up going viral, especially if we are recorded being offensive. Secrecy and transparency have have new meaning and depth.
     I feel like there is a good story in here somewhere. about people, congressmen or something getting screwed my misspoken words, and someone else, maybe someone in ISIS, knowing how to use these modern tools to their benefit.
    Tonight is first Thursday. My last in Portland for the year. I have built a silly little, or not so little art cart. Where I can wheel around my paintings and not have to pay the stupid fees for a cage on the street. It takes a little more to explain, but these parking spot spaces you rent from this art council is really a joke. You get all your stuff to sell together, and take it over there and then hock up fifty bucks for a spot. So the minute it starts you are desperate for a sale. And then everyone walks by you like a monkey in a zoo. A few may come by to look at a painting, but most do not want to engage. And once again you want to shoot your self in the face.

slow start, till I get going

  This day started with clouds. I was supposed to paint but the first moment I groggily became aware of where I had parked, it was the rumble of an old vw engine, I knew it was a Portland overcast. I pulled out a skill I have in such situations, and went back to bed. Now it is already after noon and I am sitting down for my first cup of tea.
   I am on a pier. A long way from the from the noises of other people and their society. Out here I sometimes feel alone. Isolated from society for they do not know and could not understand my situation. there are other presences here, ghosts. Sometimes I feel them, sometimes I do not. The painters who have come before me. Van Gogh, is one of the more powerful phantoms.
    Both of us found our love for art in the world and in the paint. We felt rejected, both self imposed and not, by the art community, predominately because it turned into a social clique of haves, rather than a community. So we did it our own way. Sons of preachers we only had to believe in our hearts. We would find a way.
    fortunately I am not as crazy as he.
    Aahh, the rain has arrived, and I have just made plans to walk a bunch of miles across town. I have always seen elements of my life that are quest like. I have never been able to pursue financial success. It was just not in the realm of my motivation. i want to make a better world. But it will not happen, the intent of people is not altruistic. Humans run the gambit between good and evil. some switch their natures on a whim. But society promotes certain perspectives. American capitalism thrives on competition. We enjoy seeing each other struggle and fight to make it, to get to the top. We promote individualism and independence. And we equip ourselves for this environment. Selfishness is a part of individualism, if no one is looking out for us but ourselves, then we hold on to what we got. We cannot learn to give unless someone shares and gives to us, and we recognize it. All of these attitudes and beliefs foment a mood to a place. Every town and city in America is different, and they all share a similar core through national discussions. Here in Portland we are liberal. Community is on some level generally accepted.
    I lost my train.
    there world is not going to change. There are no avenues that I can see. It is not that our system is solidly built. It is not. Which is why the people running spend so much time and effort promoting it in our minds. It is and always will be as solid as our belief. That is why above anything else television and commercials, media, they all promote our way of life. American as apple pie and football. A burger on a grill instills nostalgia. A fondness for a sunny afternoon that may be a memory compounded on many summer days, maybe one single moment that we felt good, felt at home, or may be a complete fabrication, the American moment we honor. It is about the way the memory feels more than if it is true. It is the same way in our society, our world. Do we feel good. Or has something soured in our hearts.
 

A little diddy to start the day

Don't know what I am doing today. Don't know what I am doing tomorrow. Don't know what I am doing with my life. No wait, I am painting. I am making art that help me cope with a world that i find has no meaning, no direction other than destruction. Wait, where Americans, we are builders, that's what Obama says. And that's what we do build structures and infastructure and infostructures. But how much of the world have we paved over. What has our world design destroyed in it's implementation. Am I living in the past. I don't think so. Rain forests in Brazil are not living in the past. What is left of them is our future. My lost life may not be linked in with the rest of the world, But it has meaning in the questions it asks. In the doubts I live with. Sometimes that is all you need. I am out here on the street where I have always felt at home. Let art live and breathe. Time to hit the street. Ta, for now

I may have gone off the deep end here.

  As our country prepares to send troops back to Iraq I am plagued with thoughts and concerns for the human species. Are we going into another war because this Islamic organization called ISIS beheaded a journalist, or because they have no regard for American authority and threaten to sell oil not to us and not in US dollars? How much is our military used as world cops and how much does our government emphasize this angle, and our duty, in order to use the weapons they make, make more money, and control the international market? Clearly there are some bad guys involved in ISIS, but our own government's inability to look in the mirror makes me suspicious about who might be the bad guys in a larger sense.
    Surprisingly I bring this up to talk of art. The art game is a silly one. I feel well established as an artist. I have high standards and feel content with the products I am creating. And people tend to agree. But selling these works of art is a whole different ball game. People like the idea of art, the like to see it, see me painting in their city. But spending money on it is a entirely different issue. People have other concerns. They have to pay their rent and bills, and then they want to go out and have a nice dinner, drink fancy beverages. Enjoy their life. Who wants a picture on their wall, it doesn't even have sentimental value, yet.
    People only buy art when they already value art. Most people don't. At least not the way I do, doesn't see paintings as windows into other worlds constructed in color. I have a new bent. I need to help people realize the value of art. It is more then a picture on a wall, a large shape in a park. The true importance of art is in the mind. Art changes the way we view things. A life of study has given me more reverence for the world than my pacifist minister father ever did. That is to say art has taught me love, and wonder.
    When we get caught up in material things, our own survival and comfort we can forget about our internal world. I was leaving a ministry distributing food boxes on Hawthorne a cop had polled up and was patting down a shirtless homebum. I crossed the street and a guy pushing a shopping cart approaches me. "'probly a fight. Every time they put a cake out or something there is a fight over it." I thanked what ever deity does or not exist. I thanked her for my mind. That I was not hopelessly dependent on alcohol or drugs. That I dod not have pent up anger or abuse issues. That I did not have a desire to fight anyone over a cake. That my spiritual connection to this wondrous planet truly excites me.
       Art has changed all of us. We forget and take it for granted. Just imagine a world without music, you have never heard music. Architecture is not one of my preferred arts, mainly because buildings are designed with a prison format. Meaning the spaces we live in are intended to be as many comfortable cages stacked on top of each other as possible. My grandfather would take me to Frank Lloyd Wright buildings as a kid. I remember Falling Water. That house with a tree growing through the center of it. It was peaceful. The idea of incorporating the serenity of the forrest into the design of a structure, that is architecture. Art elevates us.
      A hundred years ago the world was just getting into World War one. Cars and planes were both rather new inventions. Our lives, and our world looked a whole lot different. And so were our minds. There are some things that never change. Our desire for love and a sense of belonging will be eternal. But in other ways our brains are literally wired differently. And how much have these creative endeavors helped to develop that. Clearly technological innovations have played the largest role, factories, machines, computers. Nineteen fourteen was a simpler time. But not a simpler world necessarily. We were not one world, we were many, many worlds. Those places are for the most part gone. Now we must wrestle with a larger sense of the whole. Now art is more important then ever. Why? It is our only salvation.
     I could go on about the higher ideals of art, striving to achieve a out of reach elegance, wrestling with creation and destruction. But I also know that art is based in ego and self affirmation as much as it is in a quest for a higher state. And this makes it even more essential. Creation of art allows us to be absorbed in our own thoughts and self while still searching and questing for something beyond us.
     To most people art is a product of a wealthy culture.

The only road I've ever known

       Start today our with some cheese ball with extra wiz. What the ef hole am I doing. Got no plans, got no future. None that I can foresee at least. My cash is dwindling and i still have not figured out any avenue of sales. I was walking earlier wondering what I was still doing here, I should just pull up and go back to Eugene. My mind is divided. It is a thought path I don't even want to go down, cause it keeps going in circles. And I am left feeling isolated and concerned. I wish I had the gas money to hit the road. Eastern oregon, Vancouver Canada, California. But that is just it. I made my move. I came to Portland and now my moves have to be defensive, retreat. Idon'twannoow. I know that there is some way to make this work. I know that I need to hook up with other artists. I know I will eventually survive. Like a young gay man coming out, I know this won't kill me. I know it will slowly get easier. Just got to take it day by day. It is my own advice to fire fighters on a long hike. Never think about the destination, just focus on taking another step. I am good at that, treading water. Developed a chip on my shoulder over the years. Realized I don't actually open up to people that often. When you are willing to sink below the normal standards, to be broke and live in a vehicle, sometimes I have to pretend. Who am I kidding I always have to pretend. It is not that my life is hard or bad. It is fine and that is one reason to put a happy face out on the surface. But we can get in the habit of pretending everything is fine when turmoil is boiling inside. And then we can find ourselves without the worlds or an air of comfort that we need to say "I'm worried" or "This is stressing me out." It is sad really. There are so many people on the planet, and our own habits can make us feel like strangers among our own friends.
      I have been thinking about our fickle minds, how I wish I had just done that one thing, but I couldn't do it until I had done that other thing, to gain the perspective. I peruse artists residencies. And I wonder how anyone has the money to do this. It is either a little free time or a little free money. I never have both, not in the first thirty six years at least. I should call about working, but I don't want to give up my life, my painting whenever I want to. Actually I want to be painting whenever I don't want to as well. I keep on thinking, just bring the paint into your heart. Just live for it. It is that easy. But each day i spend more money on food, on this cup of tea sitting next to me, on life. and the more I tell myself I should refrain the more I feel I deserve it. A respite from my own drill Sargent, John Singer it would be.  Of course all these ideals do not add up to human survival, and the cycle of self stress and a dash of me against the world self pity slips in, useless. Attitudes will give you wings or bury you in a hole. And that is the concern right. That I screwed up 'cause i came at it with the wrong attitude.
    At least now I am trying. I rejected the art world in my twenties. I was way too cynical for my own good. I was a hater. The whole thing seemed like a rigged popularity contest. which sounded just like something else I had hated, high school. Now I don't care. When you know what you want, really know, you can just look past things. There are a great deal of major problems in the world, on all levels and in all things. But how could I let my feelings about it stop me from doing what I love. I am selling my artwork for a hundred to a hundred and fifty a painting. Way below what it is worth. But should I get all butt hurt and bent out of shape. Bottom line, I made something and I enjoyed making it. So I don't have the money to go to a bar and get a drink. Is that really a problem, or am I just jealous because I feel like every one else can, 'cause when your out and about everyone else seems to be well off. It is just some silly competitive attitude that is holding us back in the first place. Was I a hater, or a lazy dreamer, too afraid to get burned to take the risks, or just a kid, needing to do it his own way, to make his own mark. Thinking I didn't get a leg up, just 'cause I didn't have anyone to talk to. 'Cause there was too much to say.
     Foolish. That fickle mind again. A child then and a child now, still afraid to get hurt. Wish I wasn't. What would I do if I was fearless. Embrace homelessness and become a sidewalk painter. No money, no ego, just creation, art under the feet of people. The real message in every piece. Stop, collaborate and listen. Art folks. art will save the world. not me, not the artist.  am only an avatar, pausing in this human form to allow the energy of creation to surge through me. And I will be gone and forgotten.

Tai chi with David

Yesterday was David Carradine day fro me. Woke up after partying with Zach and he popped on the David Carradine Tai chi work out. I have always wanted to do Tai chi, and clearly there is no better way to be introduced to it then from the sunny southern California master, the legend of laid back intensity. Yeah dude, power from the eighties in the from of neon spandex, mustaches,  and the silent asian super master. Then, to conclude, we did the Carradine meditation in the horse stance. Master Carradine informed us that the mind was like any other muscle, and if you worked it tirelessly with out giving yourself rest then, it like any other part of your body looses it's suppleness, it's vibrance. It grows weary. This struck a cord with me. Due to my situation, living on the streets in my bus, I feel like I should be painting, not just everyday, but all day. I know that the harder I work, the more I am out there, i can accelerate the long road towards being a self supportive artist. But I don't paint every day. I often get caught up in banal activities of feeding myself, getting on and doing searches on this machine, or visiting and catching up with friends. While the more judgmental side of my brain is critical of these sidetracks, David Carradine reminded me that these things, this easy going attitude I am sometimes known for is not necessarily a bad thing, it could be keeping me young. this is a major time of transformation for me. Not only am I focusing and growing as an artist. I am growing as an capitalist American. Which is something I suck at. My sales pitch hoes something like I would like to make ten dollars an hour for this art, but if you like it I could continue to drop the price. Not a very smart capitalist, digging myself in a non sustainable price hole. But I have a sales pitch that I recognize sucks. These are big steps for the likes of me. I realized once i decided to try to sell my art I was a capitalist. No matter what beliefs I have the bottom line is I live and work for money.
   On the topic of beliefs I find that mine are more in retaliation to a larger system. My eldest brother once called me an anarchist, but since we stopped communicating after I broke his door off the hinges when I was seven 'cause I wanted to play with him and his friends. They had an atari. So I don't think he knows me enough to nail down my political beliefs. Since I cannot really do it myself. I am an environmentalist. I believe that if human's do not make an active choice to act as steward to the land, this little cancerous race has no chance. Beyond that I see systems as way to view the world, and I believe in diversity. My problem with capitalism is it's need and insistence on complete domination of the world. My problem his Anarchy is it gives no positive future human aspirations. My problem with Communism is it insecurely rejects all other ideas, beliefs, and modes of thought. Socialism, well, if we consider socialism as a system attempting to address human needs to work together and receive the benefits of mutual survival, I have no complaints. But while many governments have socialist elements, and programs, I know of no country, that is model to base off of. So it seems like a mute point.
     I tell myself that I moved into the bus because I knew I could not make rent while developing myself as an artist. But I am able to make it work because I have always struggled with living in a expensive, prosperous, ruling country. I frequently felt more comfortable in foreign countries. Weather they were wealthy european counties progressive in their support of art and thought, or poor villages encased in jungle where art is seen on par with magic. Every country besides America values the unexplainable, the intangible, and recognizes that art delves into that realm. As an american all that hokis pokis stuff has literally no value. If we cannot sell it or buy it, or at least market it, it has no meaning and can go to hell. Can we sell hell. Why not, isn't that what a military industrial complex specializes in.
    And really that is why art does not succeed in america. Look at all the big names. Some of their stuff is nice, but they are all clearly rather masterful at selling themselves as artists. They recognize they need to do big flashy stuff that grabs peoples attention. I would go down the list, but I am bad with both names and spelling. I will leave you with one last unsettling image. Me, sitting on Zach's little back porch over looking an apartment courtyard. The warm sun rays beaming down. I feel like a melting popsicle, having just showered and wearing nothing but a towel. And in the center of this dripping melty fruit stick are the steady words of the Kung Fu master, release the negative thoughts, and give your brain a break.

What is this place we call our world, and why do we let it get so fucked. Not actually a history lesson.

      Meaning. I think that is all I have ever really searched for in all these days on this planet. In some ways it is so simple, a purpose, a direction, a reason. And in some ways it is the hardest thing to wrap my extended digits around. It is why I have always worked hard at my jobs and yet lost interest so quickly. Ultimately that sense of purpose is what has made me throw everything I have into being an artist. But today it is calling in a different way. On the eve of new war, new violence, and new suffering. I am wishing art had the power and influence to do something. To hold back the hate that we are spawning between these countries, and these ideologies. What comes to mind is how easily ISIS or whatever group or people are being killed by American bombs will be able to spin this. It becomes more and more a holy war, and we the in the church of Capital are sending a strong message that we are better, that we should be running and profiting from their country. Listen, I know their are many sides, many casualties, people are being killed, and for the wrong reasons, because they are not with this violent movement. Kurdistan would of fallen if not for America's support. But this is pure madness. We have to trust our leaders, but I have no way to believe that they will go against a track record that goes back since their founding. Ultimately because we are a military industrial complex no matter how much we pretend to be on a humanitarian mission any one can claim we are acting in our own interests, because we are.
     Now how do we find meaning in a world where our government has been getting in or getting out of a war every decade for a hundred years. Our own personal meaning is mute is the face of these atrocities. And yet what do we do? I protested the war in Iraq while living in New York. Did it help, possibly in some miniscule way the world was able to see that the city of New York and the country of America was not dead set on slaughtering brown people. But hat is not much consolation.
     But really what does one do? Apply to do humanitarian aid work? Maybe, possibly some research is in order. really you are still not going to do anything to help the situation, but to put a face on the atrocities. Hell, maybe that is what I should do. Sometimes an artist needs to put a face on something, put it in perspective. Hmmm, maybe my life will take a turn. But if I do do that, and get a job doing some relief work I hope i am not surrounded by religious types.
    Some people look at me living in my bus as some sort of pariah, sucking on society and lazing about. If they realized how much every action, every movement of my life was a quest. Searching for a role that does not feel shallow. ISIS has been recruiting a younger generation by appealing to how hollow and empty living in these ruling first world capitalist countries is. America's response is essentially if you are foolish enough to go against us we will kill you, no matter who you are. In many ways by saying that the CIA or whomever writes these things is just playing into their hands. They are saying we do not give a shit if our society is meaningful or spiritually satisfying, we run this world, and you don't cross us.
     To someone like me it just seems sad. I know meaning is not a universal thing. You cannot put a band aid on the hole in ones soul. And if you did it would look very different from person to person. For me finding meaning right now would be painting every moment of my life, besides eating. I crave expressing myself through such a malleable medium as paint. Unfortunately my mental life is dominated by finding ways and becoming emotionally entangled with the act of selling this art. I do not expect the world to give to shits about my own dreams and quests, but I do wish that there was a little more interest in why we do things and not such unabashed drive to grab wealth and power for ourselves, the individual. It is the dark side of our individualist freedom.
     Reminds me just how much we are like the empire in Star Wars. Damn, we need an emperor who shoots electricity out of his fingers. And I want a storm trooper outfit. Every American deserves one.

Get real dude

The fluid reflected the light. It looked like digital roots emanating from his trunk. At that moment he wailed. Where are we? Do these seconds shape us?
    The seconds were ticking. There were a couple of dudes half a block back that were thinking of pulverizing me till I was laying on the street oozing out fluid, weather it be piss or blood, I did not want to find out. But there was this poor guy laying on his back, his large belly arcing across the air, and the river flowing below him. There was not much they could rob from me. I suspected that they had a gun, or maybe I was just trying to justify leaving this guy. I felt a split in reality. The person who stayed and the person who left. Not that I imagine myself braver than I am. But there is a kind of person who achieves things in the real world. It could be making their mark or helping a guy whose been beat. And there is a kind of person who does not do either of those things. I am starting to feel like the latter. And in a way those two, who were calling back to me to come to them, on a completely different level they got my number. They are saying, Hey you bum, your not an artist, let's teach you a lesson. And the punches rain down.
    It is not actually that there is another time or another self occupying that time. It is that this shell of a body and this time in this world is a tease. Locked a breath away from my own aspirations. My ability to abscond with the money has always rendered me without funds to pick up a check. It is getting redonkulous. Like right now I am hungry, my head is sorta floaty, and I am supposed to write something good. Shit.
    Being homeless is sort of great. You have sank so low in society that their is almost no way back in. Ya Know. I ain't gonna get no regular job, I am homeless. Can't work and be on the street at the same time. Just ain't natural. In someways it helps me as an artist 'cause no matter how far I fall I might as well keep trying. Keep looking for my next step.
      And the game continues.
    I was never a very crafty player. Ever since we were wee little ones Gabe would speak to about the higher ideal of art. He would sermon on the death of selling out for money and not keeping to the principles of creation. Where odes this get us, artists in our own mind, exiled and alone on the fringes of a city that could care less for our existence. That sounds a bit dramatic.
      The other problem is that I do not actually have any examples of what an artists life looks like. I assume they make art and someone helps them sell it for an amount of money that allows their business to continue. But that is the extent of my vision into the realm of success. Rather shameful actually. For someone with a working class demeanor it is hard to conceive of how people who are comfortable and wealthy exist. So I cannot sell to these people. I don't even really like these people. some of the kids I went to high school with who seem to have no idea just how cooshie and privileged their lives are make me sick. But of course I am thirty six and live in a bus.
     So how am I going to sell my art.. I am not. Not here. Not in Eugene. I need the internet to help out. Need to restart this with a long term plan. NOt some long shot in the dark. I think that is what is getting me down. My attitude is wrong, the whole thing was not sustainable. Even if it worked once or twice it could not keep making money's over and over. So this is where I am 'sposed to be. Back at this drawing table.

Damn, just another day of indecision

   Some things I can never quite balance, my desire to be social yet not drink and smoke, my desire to create in isolation and yet not have a way to share my art. My whole life I have wrestled with this. Of course college is all about creating these environments for students, and I probably should of gone, but I still have lingering resentments with my family and I hate debt, like with a passion. Even the little bit of it that I am in now drives me mad if I think about it. My mother was always in debt, juggling cards from one to the other. Stressed me out even then. Well she would freak out about how screwed she was, and she was. Wait I am not going down this road again.
    I am going back to Eugene. The reason that bums me out is there does not seem to be any future there. Here in Portland I am homeless, painting and doing alot of this, waking up in coffee shops writing my thoughts. But I feel like something could happen. I feel like I may make a connection, may sell a painting, may meet an artist. It seems like the future has potential. Weather that potential is coming into fruition does not seem to matter so much. It is enough to get me out of bed and into the world. Eugene does not have that. So am I stepping into my own depression pool, where I will sink down into the wet Willamette valley, no purpose, no direction, craving paint but missing my muse.
    Of course it only has to be for a few months. That could be the time I need to get a website up and an etsy account.
     I have been working within myself to stay focused and try to be almost an archetypal artist. This person who lives to create and is in many ways sustained on that desire. It has started to burn me out, I feel lost and floundering. I know my place is out there.
     I should join some artist community somewheres.

relax, breath, and maybe I won't be such a mess

    I tell myself to stay on track, don't loose your focus, get her done and all that jazz. But maybe i am going about this all wrong. Maybe my simple attempt to stay focused, maintains a serious demeanor to my nature and does not allow me to see all the possibilities, to react and alter my actions by the events around me. Maybe I am building  personal cage, like the ones everyone else living around me lives in. One of those protective little bubbles that lets no one in, keeps me safe from odd comments and unwanted judgements. Being an artist is about casting down these walls and living in a dynamic world. Too bad I suck at that. Maybe if I was not raised in such a frigid uptight city like Boston I wouldn't be  naturally wrapped in this callous armor. Nice considerate people don't fuck with you, they observe and listen. And then there are the people who just have to be all up in your shit. I am coming off to stern and clear cut here. Many people approach me painting and are completely cool about it. What I am trying to say is that there are crazy weirdos who make us build up these defenses against the world, and those people go away, but our defenses don't go down. It is nearly instinct for me to not engage people on the street, to keep my head and eyes ahead. While if i feel rejected by this or any other city, I have to question myself, how much have I really done to be accepted in the first place.
     This gives me a moment to complain about the digital realm. Americans naturally avoid communicating, as part of an extended avoiding conflict by never going near people in general. But now that we have this whole new world we have even less reason to want to communicate out in such a savage place as the street. We can eradicate all human contact if we wanted.Why bother it is only going to be painful. Ha. We have just made it too easy to avoid each other.
  DAMMIT
    Am I going to move back to that hippie hamlet? I do not want to, but there is only so long I can live on the streets in the bus in the city. Dude cop was right. It is a lifestyle that could of worked in the seventies or even eighties. But not now so much. Which really heightens the issues of our time. America in general and Portland in particular is trying to grow, make money, look cool and hip and be an awesome place. While at he same time inflation is spiraling out of control, college prices are ridiculous, unemployment is high and rents continue to climb. Our society is telling itself a lie where ever the world is not shitty enough for it to be obvious how much BS that lie is. Portland happens to be one of those places. Mainly, television is our torch. As long as the news hour does not depress us, and our shows keep coming on, we will continue working and eating. And the world spins on.
     Maybe Eugene will not be such a bad step. The reason I wanted to leave in the first place was I was done with the partying scene. Eugene was just too little and I felt like there was nothing of interest to do there.  No women to meet and try and impress.
      The real core of my thoughts this day is that I have not actually embraced being an artist living in a bus. Yes, I do not know what tomorrow will bring. That is not a problem. Yes I have to think about what I am doing for the winter. But Eugene will be there. Nothing is going anywhere, except maybe me.  

There has been a time rift

   I may have enter a world of irrevocable pain last night. It depends which time I am in. But let's go back a little. Set the scene for this cosmic cowinkie dink.  Walked across the city, had a nice day with Kim. Some realizations are starting to sink in. People wear way too much sports attire. And that I need to make a break. A dramatic break. I am thinking Eastern Oregon for some reason. Probably a bad one since it gets colder then a witch's tit out there. But then I realize I need to make some money, even a little so I can actually have a little egg to nurse myself through that frigid time. In some ways going to a really small town could be like a third world country, once you are defined as the artist, everyone knows. It becomes a neighborhood fact. And then you can work from there, or people end up coming to you for work as much if not more then you going to them.
    Got to reach out through the shadows and take hold what i know is there for me.
    My honest fear. So silly. I have done it before. Been alone. I am almost there now, except that I can escape to my friends. Got to cut the safety net. Dammit. cannot quiet decide. See, having a stable home and a place to plug in my internet is pretty essential. But then again parking some where with a wonderful backdrop I can paint whenever I see fit is very nice as well. So again my mind returns to the power of money. Which reminds me about the task at hand. I was stoned. Which is a thing about my friends here. They don't drink much which is great. And I am not complaining here. I partake as well, but they, and we, smoke copious amounts of weed. It is not bad, it is sort of like I am dreaming a bit while I am awake. I come up with convoluted cool ideas I have not thought through all the time. Maybe I catch myself staring of for a few minutes in a day that I suspect would not be happening if I never smoked. Who knows.
     I left Kim's a few minutes before one and started walking home, it was to be long way across town. After only about fifteen blocks I came to the lone pine cemetery and decided I needed a brake. I sat under a tree, legs out head up and eyes closed. My left hand was cupped in my lap. It reminded me of a Buddhist statue, my hand position that is. I was trying to see into potential futures. To find my story. The story that is me and this world colliding into a collision of blood and spit and madness. Maybe not too much madness. I think I may have been a little more visible then I had intended. My sharp and paranoid senses thought they could decipher someone from a distant balcony asking another person what he was doing down there, and the other one saying the he was probably getting drunk. Foolish mortals hand they not heard of charging one's spiritual energy at midnight in a cemetery in order to look into the future. Did they not know I had a long walk ahead of me and needed to be in the proper mind set, energized in spirit to make it. I was done here. But wait. I had a conclusion. It does not have to do too excessively with money, but everyone will work for what they need, what ever that is. People will fight for it, wealth, power, love. Whatever they can go out and grab, they will go as far as they need to to get that assurance, that comfort of their needs, their wants. I left the cemetery and headed north.
      I hit broadway and headed westwards. I was walking up on this guy coming towards me. He was short. His little cap did not cover his spiky naps. His left hand was buried in his baggy pocket while his right clutched a roll of money and held up his pants at the buckle. He was altogether gangster, with his whole body crunched over his crotch. I readied myself for conflict of the violent nature, spider sense tingling. I was holding a pencil point out, probably not that threatening unless someone had recently wanted casino. I felt a little like Joe Pesci. It had not been long since i had been jumped and i still had some anger burning in me. Mainly for those two kids who jumped me. But anger none the less. Right as I passed this guy my fold up chair sticking out of my bag hit the pole, made a thunk and spun me so that i stepped with my shoulder first. A few cars down there was some brute looking guy making out with a girl against a car. As I walked down the street I passed some closed shops and then there was this guy, his shoes off. Laying there on the ground. Looked like he could of peed himself. Didn't look like blood. I stopped and started to walk towards him while I glanced back. As I approached him, almost on cue, he started to moan. "Hey you, come back here". I heard from behind me. It could be the big bruiser or the little gangster. If the guy was beat up and robbed the same was about to happen to me. If he was shot, though I still did not think it was blood, I may be stepping in to that as well. I looked at him, twenty feet away, moaning, his shoes off and some sort of fluid running through the cracks between the bricks flowing down to the drain. "Hey, come here."I turned and let my legs swiftly bare me away from the perceived danger. The problem was I was walking down Broadway for another mile. A large bright street yes, but that obviously had not stopped them earlier. Fortunately I strutted my stoned brain home without further incident.
     But it occurred to me that it was all building up. That whole notion that this is the first day of the rest of your life. That is me, I am living in that now. I say there is a dimensional rift. The real story and all the other stories i am telling are happening now. And I can't wait to introduce you to the characters.

Time sidetracked

      I will be honest with you. Part of me did this, moved into a short bus, in order to slow the world down. You get older, fall into patterns and routines and, before you know it the years are streaking by. That is what Eugene felt like for me. It was all too easy. So I decided to make things hard. And it works. The other thing is I knew painting was in my heart. But I needed to put in the time. I needed to produce paintings. Things that I could be happy about.Things that would push me. I want to have an innate knowledge of color and how it mixes. But I am getting sidetracked again.
      In nineteen ninety seven I was running. Running from Boston, my family, from seventeen years of of education that was threatening to wither my spirit and soul. I was not a very happy kid. And I wanted something different. All I knew was I loved to travel, to see new places, to have adventures. While many of my friends were lining up with black gowns on I was walking out of Jake shores house with my thumb in the air. He lived in Gardner Mass, end of the commuter rail, and on route two, heading west. It is a beautiful road. Would not choose another for my first hitchhiking experience. I had no idea. The first ride I got was from this frumpy couple in an old station wagon packet to the gills. I think they bought and sold things people thought were valuable, but honestly they may of been living out of their car or just drove stuff around. It was a rather uneventful trip for hitchhiking, I was a baby with a baby face, till I got to the New York boarder. A lady in an old beat up sedan gave me a ride over it. The floor was littered with cigarette boxes that I tried not to crush even though they were empty. she dropped me off at the juncture to Albany and headed north. It was after six, maybe close to seven. I had an hour of light, two at the most, and no plans. It would take me six years to actually hitch hike through Albany. And that is another story. There was a house at the juncture. As I passed by someone hollered at me. He was sitting on his porch and he said he was about to fire up the grill and throw on some steaks. No way I could turn that down. We stood around his grill talking. His brother suped up cars that he raced on the track just down the road, you could practically see it. I could see his brother and a friend a little ways off working on a car in front of his garage. I told him I was from Boston. He said he went to Boston some times. To tell the good news. He was happy he could feed a travel on the road. It was just like in the good book. I should of known right then. But I was young and innocent, this was the first person of this nature I had met. He wanted to hunt for frogs around his pond to throw on the grill. It was then he started to talk about money and how it did not add up. I was suspicious, I did not feel comfortable. But I was along way from anywhere and the sun had set. After steaks we went inside. I had to go to the bathroom. While in the bathroom I chose to investigate. There was an composition book behind the toilet. I flipped through the pages, came to a page written in black ink. The number three sixty was multiplied and divided and subdivided or and over filling up the entire page. Then later in the book in red ink the numbers six six six were multiplied and subdivided to the nth degree. I remember it coming over me like a wash, not fear or concern, but like a spy that may be figured out, like you just noticed just HOW big grandma's teeth really are. "The numbers do not add up". I was in the den, literally sitting on his shitter, of someone I did not understand and was not interested in understanding. I finished up and joined him. His room was an amalgamation of youth merging with maturation. Bookshelves, that along with their normal fare held a number of stuffed animals, a number of weights and dumb bells, and a microphone hanging off center of the room, near the bed. The house was a duplex, split down the middle. His parents owned it, lived in one side and gave him the other side, maybe with his brother, he didn't say. He said I could stay in his room and he would stay down the hall. I remember laying on my back in the dark on his bed. There was enough light coming in that I could just see the microphone hanging down. Even though it had been a long day I suddenly felt very awake and uncomfortable. At some point I fell asleep, and awoke the next morning with the exact same feeling, fight or flight raging, and it was flight time. I went down the hall to the room he was in. I heard a noise from the room knocked lightly and opened the door tentatively. He stood in the center of the room, he stood as if at a podium, head up and staring out to an unknown audience. And he was reading, clearly, from the bible. I thanked him and said I would be on my way. he did not pause, did not look my way. I scaddatled. Outside I walked for about half a mile, was approaching the racetrack when the same lady, her car littered with cigarette cases picked me up. See I changed plans. Albany was out. There was a little road, highway eleven heading south, that I could take. My goal was New Paltz, and my friend Eli Winnograd. He had clear eyes that seemed ready always for something. But that is another story. For now I spent about three hours hitching with no one slowing down till a car pulled over. It was Lacey Tamstead. After all these years I will never forget him and I only knew him that day. First thing he says, "There is cooler at your feet, help yourself to a drink." He had ran a hotel in Vermont but was moving to none other than New Paltz. We headed south together. He told me about the area. Drove by the canal and he pointed out different boats. Even bought me lunch at acute dinner as we were cutting over to the turnpike. He was just one of those people who is easy going enough to put you at ease as well. I am guessing in his late forties, milk chocolate complexion, which is rare fir Vermont. He mainly managed kids my age, so he knew how to size up my interest in adventure.  As he dropped me off, he even gave me the number of the people he was staying with. This was before cell phones.
      That was more than seventeen years ago. I have lived in and visited many places since. I would like to say my spidey sense has improved a little. But you never know what tomorrow bring. Last night I was reluctantly moving my bus from one of my favorite spots around midnight. In all reality I moved it about eight blocks. Just enough to let people know I could move if it was a problem. right as I was approaching my spot some guy crossed the street and waved me down. I stopped. More because I was in sight of my spot and I felt I would have to deal with this dude anyway. The bus door swung open. "Man can you take me to the hospital." Me,"I don't know where the closest hospital is." I let him on the bus and said I would drive him somewhere, away from here. He decided he did not actually want to go to the hospital since he might freak out in the state he was in. He would rather just curl up on the floor of the bus. Sorry bud, that is where I draw the line. So then I could just take him under the bridge where a bunch of other people crash out. And oh, did I have any drugs? At least that is what I thought he was asking about. It was something I never heard of, that was probably not good for you if your body was retaining water so much you wanted to go to the hospital. That is one thing about the bus, to a normal it is an eyesore, an ugly invasion on their street. To a homeless person it is a mobile palace, complete with all the luxuries.
     Well I never really got into my exploration of homelessness and time. Maybe next time?

Going for a walk filled with questions of identity

     Last night around nine I walked from the bus to twenty third, the nob hill neighborhood. It is always strange, this walk. Walking from an abandoned industrial area, my only company a few other rogue vehicle dwellers like myself to a ritzy street with high end restaurants and shops. But last night I was still feverish and I had to contemplate my life and what brought me here. I thought of my father saying I should get a scholarship to pay for college 'cause there was no money. It might not of stung so if he was not a part time student at Harvard. Or if he ever talked about money at all. The line between privilege and poverty in my life has been a strange one, and living in a vehicle only makes it more apparent. It is not the first time. I lived in a van in NYC for a winter, but in reality it was only a few months. Muddy and I went back to New York when we first moved to Saginaw to make some money. I lived in a van until Christmas when I house sat for Sayre and Lori, then I stayed around for the month of January.
     I must say I baffle even myself. I have too much of an independent spirit, and have been an artist for too long. I was just privileged enough to know I wanted to do my own thing, but I never had any support. This is a funky combination. Though I enjoy working, and liked all my jobs in the restaurant biz and wildland fire fighting. I am an artist, a creator at heart and in the end I desire a creative outlet. I must make art and I am stubborn enough to do it with no concept of how I would make money from it. So what am I, a privileged little American, painting, and living in his vehicle on the streets of Portland. Or am I an artist, governed by my desire to paint, with only creation in his heart. Well it is hard to say, maybe both. It is a little weird to be a hard working, nonalcoholic, living on the streets, and call myself privileged. But in America we have to recognize our wealth. For me to simply do something with no immediate monetary benefit denotes privilege. And to have done it for over a year now. It is interesting though. I would probably be able to live more in par with the people around me if I lived in a foreign country. Which brings me back to walking down twenty third street. I am not bemoaning my present situation but, just like in New York it makes me uncomfortable around wealth. These nicely dressed people in nice cars going to nice restaurants, it is horrible of me, but I think about how much money they banter around with, and how little money I would need to have a little studio and a place to legally park my bus. Of course once I had a studio I would only want more, a bigger place, more supplies, etc.
     Allot of thoughts and feelings for a walk to the store to get batteries. I thought of my grandfather Ernie Sr.. He was someone I could always talk openly with. It has been nineteen years since he passed. Have I made him into a different person in that time. Elevated his character? No, not much. He really was a great listener. I did not know when I was a kid that I would never meet another person like him.
    When I paint a portrait the world seems to dissolve around me. There is only the person sitting, my eyes receiving the information, my arms creating it, and the canvas capturing the moment. In some ways it was similar when I spent time with grandpa. He was so attentive to you, even when I was just a child, a conversation with him felt like a special moment in time. He wanted to understand the world through your eyes. I do not know what he did exactly, he was attentive n a way I have never seen since. There is a picture in my grandmother's book of him talking to a child, he is squatting down on one knee so that they are eye to eye. I love that picture. It is so characteristic of him, being able to bridge the gap between our spirits. He did it all the time, connected with people in a way they never forgot. Even if they only met him once in their life. To the world he was the president of the carnegie foundation, or the secretary of education, but to me he was a friend and figure to look up to.
     I was still walking, on my way back now. Passed a yellow corvette, and holding the thought of my grandfather in my heart. Maybe I needed a friend, being sick and surrounded by unobtainable wealth. Maybe I wished I still had someone to look up to.

This is not just the caffeine talking

   There is this art in the Pearl thing going on this weekend. People set of booths at the end of the park blocks and sell their art. Don't wanna be a hater here. These people are all very skilled artist with a great deal more painting experience than I do. My problem is not with them, it is with the whole universe. Yes it has come down to it folks, my problems with the universe. Actually it is not the universe it is our attitude that art should be this way or that. All these people have very pretty, refined, balanced paintings. They were all very pretty. But to me none of them have any energy. My paintings are not nearly as clean and concise, maybe not as elegant and what not, but I see my struggle in them. I see my digging and striving to convey what I see. The stupid part is they're look is what my future should look like. I should iron out the wrinkles in my style and more toward crisp color changes and a complete piece that would go with any interior. Blahh, that was me puking in my mouth a little. Sorry you did not see or hear that, I love talking about interiors, especially with crazy bored house wife's, with no intention of actually paying you. Ha. I will never succeed in this biz.
      So in conclusion, in order to market yourself you must blossom in to a state of stagnancy.
      But I will not be led down that trail. Ha you think I wouldn't sell myself out for a fine cup of french pressed stumptown coffee. What I do not understand is what motivates a person to recreate a painting in their style over and over again. I mean I know they spent a long time developing that look. It is like they spend half their life building a car and then they spend the rest of it driving it around and trying to make money of it. And when it comes to going to these little pop up art shows that is exactly what they are doing. The sad thing is they probably don't even sell that much and are always counting their coins.
     I am really not going to go down that trail. But what am i gonna do, fail? Who knows. I feel good about things right now. It is September first. The first leaves are browning, the nights are actually cool enough that I wake up and pull a blanket over myself. The future is as uncertain as it ever has been. I am feeling more harassment from the cops, even though they have not been in my face recently, just a calmative anxiety. But I feel good. I do not know what will happen next. But this month is gonna be alright. I don't know if I feel it or if I just believe it, or that because I believe in now, now. Which reminds me of space balls. anyways, when I rewind the tape I am gonna look back and see that this was a formative month. I am in that state where you care but don't care. Where you are relaxed and focused.
     Painting is just what I do. So eventually I am going to find a way to make it work.

Dawn in the garden of Ahhhhh

    My brain feels like a big poop tank with a school of turds floating around in it, feeding voraciously  on what few rational thoughts I have left. It is grey and wet outside. I do not know what I would want, but it would probably include a bed and a TV. I am sort of glad that that is not an option for me. Simply having more time not to absorb media, weather off of a tv or from a computer makes living in my vehicle more appealing. 'Cept the cops are starting to get to me. It is not that they have done anything particularly aggressive too recently, They have just been strutin'. And I know that they can give me a ticket any time, which I cannot pay for. So I live in fear. Well depending on where I am parked. In the NW industrial district I don't think they care. They just mark you down, keep an eye on you.

    It is art in the Pearl day. People rent spots to set up their pop up tents with their art inside. I cannot relate to them. Not that we are all that different, they are a little ahead in the game, they have some money to invest in their business. I wonder if anyone is buying their stuff. I don't think I can do any of this street selling any more. It is just too exhausting. You build up all this nervous excitement to get everything ready and set up and then end up feeling like a captive monkey in a zoo, as the throngs of people mossy by, looking briefly at your artwork, but not long enough for you to address them about questions. After hours of that you pack up and go home, hopefully having made enough money that you are not poorer than before you came. And then yo are tired and don't feel like making art for a day because you hate humanity. But it is ok, you are supposed to be defeated by the world, you are an artist, and that's what it means, and why does no one succeed at this anyway. Oh, yeah.

     I am living to create and create only. For the month of september it is all art all the time. In pretty much all ways living as an artist making paintings in the street is more refreshing than these art shows anyway. That is what you need, to stir it up alittle. These art walk shows are set up like a mall of booths, there is no way for the audience to feel involved, to break out of that window shopping attitude and involve themselves. 

     Since my funds are deteriorating this may not be a good conclusion, but I think it is. I may do another one, maybe last Thursday, or even Saturday market before I leave, but my mental state is both too important and delicate for me to toss myself to these vultures. 

    When I feel good I can do anything, hold on to that.

In between thoughts

      Digging down into the muck and grime of our world, on a quest for meaning where all seems to be tinsel.  What is our roll here. For me it is to put paint on canvas and to attempt to live in a less destructive way in the world. But that is rather shallow and does not address the deeper meaning, just dances around the edge of the shit bowl of truth.
       When I think about all that has happened in my life. The people I have known, the places I have been, the things I have experienced. I have started to zero in on a clear direction. I have begun to find my place. But I am still a ways off. Only having two years at community college is a bit hampering. Predominantly because I do not actually know anyone in my field, and actually, besides being relatively certain art is completely nepotistic I do not know the field and the way it works. Well I know it has become more and more business oriented. But that is not much.
     Each day I reassess, it comes with the territory of living in a bus that has to be moved to a new location each day. It comes with making art and having no security and little money. Each day i am granted the privilege of not knowing what i am doing and trying to reform my plan.
     Maybe i should go back to the beginning. explore the entire story of my life. Tell it all and see what motifs form. God it sounds like so much. so many lenses to look through to understand those times and the people involved.

Just some thoughts of the day..

      I am back to Portland in a couple hours. The world is feeling small. I have to do something I am not good at, make connections. I am unsocial for all the wrong reasons. I think my overly perfectionist brain does not know how to simply make light conversation. It is always pondering intent and word usage. As if i am incapable of relaxing and letting the interaction flow through it's natural course. Once I know someone this is not a problem. But that is not helpful to me now. Maybe it is the writer in me, always trying to craft the dialogue, or that fool who is thinking there is a right thing to say. A perfect line or word. I must say my desire for perfection has been one of my greatest enemies in life. I have thought of and begun literally hundreds of projects. And so few of them have been brought in to fruition, because they are never good enough. Of course I cannot understand all the angles. I can see many ways in which my obsessive concern for detail has held me back creatively, but i do not know the ways in which the very same traits have behooved my creative process, or are possibly at the very root of it. That is something I feel strongly about, Understanding that all our strengths are also our weaknesses. That there is a reason why we are all so different, because to solve difficult problems we need an ability to look at the question from many different perspectives. Ultimately variety is life.
     I feel like my last blog was a failure. I do not think I am really capturing the story of our times, and the struggle of elevating ones beliefs and dreams above monetary success or even survival really. To dare to live a dream. Maybe I should try again, or maybe I have not fleshed out my own thoughts enough to really know what I am saying.
     Ok, let's take this from the top. I have drawn and painted my entire life, or since I was six or seven. I n many ways I  did not recognize how much it was part of who i was until recently. I knew that I was good at drawing and painting, I received praise. I knew that I enjoyed it. But it was not until I went out into the world and did any job I could find that I actually realized how much focus, how much centered and driven peace I felt while creating art that I started to acknowledge that paint was who I was. That there was a place in my brain that was more alert, more at ease, and more alive while I created art then at any other time in my life. I realized I could not live without drawing and painting. I think at the same time in began to dawn on me that freedom meant being yourself, and I started an aggressive campaign to achieve self expression. In my entire life I can not make all the art I wish to. And so I jumped into living as an artist.
     That said I approach things in my own style. It is easy for me to sit in front of a canvas for eight hours. While it is much harder to sit in front of a computer for eight minutes.  I am a horrible salesman, I don't want someone to buy something unless they want it. I t just seems like a lie if the purchaser does not truly value what they buy. My attitude has to change, and soon. Not that I want to transform into a cut throat salesman, but that I need to find a way to survive. To maintain my life as an artist, and eventually be able to pay for a home that does not have wheels.
     First I had to recognize myself as an artist. Then I had to prove myself to the world and be seen as an artist on the outside. Now, I need to make it work for me. I need to play the game for high stakes. My ability to be who I am.
     This perspective makes me feel a certain amount of daily drama. Living in a bus and dealing with cops, and people that are perturbed by my existence makes me feel daily drama. Working every day at art and receiving daily praise while still being completely broke makes me feel daily drama. Just being on the fringe of society while actively doing what I love brings that tension to the forefront. And then, feeling condemned for not approaching life with a basic greed and sole financial concern continues the essence of my story. That's where i am coming from. Who knows where i am going.

To sleep perchance to dream.

    When I was in first grade my brother Gabriel was in third. He informed me that he would be a writer once he had achieved adulthood. I was the visual artist along with my eldest brother. In many ways these were our roles that had been assigned to us from our own cosmos. I have always enjoyed writing, thinking up stories and as the title of this blog clearly states spent sometime creating comic books. But I was not the writer of the family. My brother, father, uncle, these are the people who held such a title. Now, as my brother married and scrambling to build a life for himself and his wife has put writing aside, I am finally starting to question these roles. I am writing.
    One thing that has intrigued me is how many authors set their stories in real or imagined pasts or futures. In their quests for drama, and action, they must change the world. Reformulate it to a time where stories unfold, where heroes, not just rube's like us live.
    But wait. What is wrong with our time. Whether we know it or not we live in a science future. Because we live in such an important, unique time we have been separated from the drama of our times. Most of us are neither rich nor powerful enough to feel that we are involved. And yet we are.
     Being an artist and a traveler, I have lived through many stories, and they continue, in many ways every day as I attempt to hustle a life out of art. Art is a horrible money making scheme. People like it as a concept, and many people enjoy seeing someone painting a picture on the street. They feel cultured, and the grand design of society seems to be in fulfillment when an artist is present. But Americans do not want to pay for it, usually even if they are getting it for cheap. Art is something the organizations that run everything should somehow support, right.
     I cannot be governed by money. Money doesn't get me up in the morning, it does not wander through a setting with me, and help me find a composition. It doesn't sit with me while I paint, doesn't help me perceive the colors and shapes and form them on the canvas. Money has no involvement in my creative process. For that reason I am one of two thing, or maybe both. A failure, and or locked in to a different value system than the society around me.
     Our day and age, predominantly capitalism and the way it has manifested itself in our time defines our principles and values. There are ways in which this system allows humans to explore themselves and the beings they want to be, and ways in which they are stifled, and held back. The stymied being is growing more apparent as our own regulatory elements grow more pervasive.
     This is where the artist steps in. Where we dig down and quest for a new meaning, a new set of values. Or rather a new focusing, on something that feels more authentic to us, as people. Where do these principles sprout from. The earth of course. I can think of no truer saying then you will reap just what you sow. I mean it is always apparent, a well made object will always out last and be more valuable then an object that received little thought and development. But I am getting sidetracked. What I came here to speak of is the story of our times. the shifting of our attitudes towards, in lieu of a better word, a more sustainable society and ethics. This is the story of our time. And it does not have to do with only the destruction of our planet and it's natural resources. It has to do with the destruction of each other and our cultures. As Americans we are sidelined as passively acquiescing this dismal reality. No body really wants to address it 'cause we are too tightly bonded to our system. That is, there are no easy answers and the one thing we are not free to do is change the way our system works. So we settle for our cars and televisions. We settle for our fantastical past and future stories full of drama and struggle. Our time is too convoluted, too confusing and too personal. We are so bound by right and wrong we cannot even look at our own time without growing uncomfortable.
     It is not my desire to condemn the American citizen. I am one as well. What are we gonna do all join the peace core. Go to some impoverished country with a bunch of holier than thou nut jobs thinking they are saving the savages. NO. We have to dream. Dream a new world, but not like some burner talking about how better it could be. Until we realize that we must work for it. Because we will reap just what we sow.

On the suckiness of freedom

     I was never met to work a nine to five, or at least I never met a regular job, a person does not need a degree for, that after a month my brain was fizzling, and two months I was bored into a wild manicness. I need challenge, risk, and growth or I go mad. That was what I liked about wildland firefighting, and one of the many things drawing me to painting. But is there such thing as too much challenge? Well, obviously, if you are not up to it. And that is the question I have to ask myself all the time.
     Making my go as an urban landscape painter is rife with daily challenges. Predominantly a nagging feeling of self doubt, because I could always be doing better. The painting side has gone well, I feel comfortable with my growth and production. The hard part, where I am riddled with uncertainty is the sales department. Maybe now that I am leaving Portland that voice in my head will stop saying, "Dammit man, I am an artist not a salesman. If I was a salesman I would never of ended up here." Maybe. But probably not.
     But that is not what I want to talk about here. I want to talk about this feeling I have all the time, this haunting freedom. See all I have to do is paint and sell what I paint. This morning I sold a painting for a hundred and fifty dollars. Which is nice, but it is not enough that I can slow down. But, because I could do anything the doubts start arising. What is my next move. Should I paint another one here in seattle, or go back to Portland. Should I move to Port Townsend this month. I formulate plans, but there is always a doubt, am I going about this all wrong?
     In some ways the answer is easy. at the moment I am making art and still have a few bucks to live on. So I am making it. But the winter is on the horizon. And I know I am failing.
      All day people approach me saying they like my paintings. In Portland I said I was being killed with kindness, and it continues here. The reality is I should try putting out a hat. I should try soliciting, maybe in the real world and the cyber world for a few bucks or coins. Every dollar going in to the coffers rather than out is needed. And every day I know I am not doing enough.
      That is the horror of freedom. I can do what ever I want, go where ever I like. Right now and anytime I know there are no limits to my options. I can do whatever I can think of doing, but what should I do. I know myself and my skills. I know I will only grow as a salesman out of desperate necessity. And that is not far away. The future is entirely unknown and completely in my hands. And that is the scariest thing in the world.

In search of a painting

    The sun beams it's hot rays down. I am burdened in the heat, paints, palette, brushes, easel, a canvas, and what ever other nick knacks I need for the day. How is anyone supposed to find a painting like this. I have not been in this city in god knows how long. How do I turn on my electric view finder eye. Well the answer is you don't.
     I am carrying all my painting stuff 'cause that is my baggage. That's how I role. I may wonder around for hours and not find some spot to paint. Maybe the same thing tomorrow. This is my quest.
     Finding a painting is a challenging task. When it comes to landscape images most people are drawn to the epic. They want to capture a skyline, a bridge, they want the dramatic vastness of space. I am not unlike people, so I put my blinders on. when you work on a canvas eighteen inches wide, or even twenty four inches, in order to get that big space you have to make everything really small. Then you can't get all the details, it gets harder to line everything up. You frustratingly work into a little space fumbling into the canvas till it looks like mud.
     Our eyes can do amazing things. I can look out the door of this coffee shop, across the street, through a parking lot and across another street to read a no parking sign. My eyes are zooming in and focusing. That sign seems to enlarge because I am giving it my attention. If I were to do a painting from this perspective the sign would not be legible. I would more than likely overlook it completely.
     So when I look for a painting I observe the world on a small scale. I am looking for an archway, a tree, some sculpture in relation to it's environment, something that I can set the size and proportions and have the space to fit in all the colors, shapes, and lines that make up the complete form. There is already a daunting amount of information to capture in anything you paint. That is the theory behind going smaller.
      Dammit. I am going to end up painting the Pike street market.
      Well it makes sense. I am trying to asses if this is a good city to be making art in. I might as well go to the location that is interesting and obvious. Obvious because it is Seattle's tourist center; a place where money comes to be spent. Well I am still gonna walk around the city today and look for another spot.

Finding the space

      Manifest your dreams. We can do that. We know that we can, if it was not for all the demands put upon us by the world. That is the theory behind college, place a young receptive mind in a healthy learning environment and they will spend their parents money partying. But we are past all that.
     I can and will become an artist, but my responsibility right now is to work at producing images that intrigue and excite me. But more important it is to create and maintain an environment where I am constantly inspired to do that. And sell myself. Those are large requests. Some days, like today you are just tired. Can't think about art. I can't even think about thinking about art. Some days I do not have the energy to reach into the future and pull out a trail, a road into my future dream self. Some days crash into you and wash over you, they carry you along.
      Fortunately my future is not governed by time. My dreams are controlled by my monetary situation. And I still have a few hundred left. Need to sell art. Need to make art. No, what you need to do is be art.
      My natural state really is creating. I love to paint, draw, sculpt, write, perform, direct. I love it all working alone or with people. And I really can't hold down a regular job for very long. I get bored. I think I could spend the rest of my life creating and still not have enough time. Then I remember I decided I was going to spend the rest of my life creating. That, as my money dwindles, is exactly what I am trying to figure out.  That I am here, in Seattle to answer these questions. To solve this predicament, this financial debacle that holds me back. That have tied my hands mid spell, mid manifestation.
       I don't need to make art, to think about art, need to be art. Just like I don't ned to wear a costume to be a superhero. The walls, even the walls of money are on the inside. I have no responsibilities, no ties, no job. Only a responsibility to myself to be what I want.
       Suddenly I am more focused. I want to go into the city and find a painting. Can't squander a day, a moment. That is a good word. Squander. I mean it is a bad word, something humans afraid to live, myself included, afraid to risk, to fail, we do it every day. Squander the moment. I love the way the Q seems to be a pool that you slip into, so easy to get stuck in. To look out realizing the moment is gone. You are stuck in another squandered moment.
      The thing is if we are really focused on our aspirations we are driven by our own insecure need to be valued by people because we do not value ourselves enough. Or we realize there is no other option, but to do what we love and do it well. But without our insecure vanity do we have the desire, the gumption to actually succeed, and will we be plagued all our lives by the thought that we just wanted to be admired. And even when we are successful and well known, even when we are admired by all, we will not be happy. Will our loneliness haunt us to our grave. Is that what happened to Robin Williams?Is the American dream really American's dreams? Dreams that should not be fulfilled, dreams that are not fulfilling. That is why we get distracted. Because we really ought to smell the roses. Take a kid out for ice cream and give our lover a kiss.
     Sorry. Still gonna stay on my road to paintersville.

Evening walk and thoughts.

        I was walking down Milwaukee through the Brooklyn neighborhood in Portland. I was coming from the house where I am storing my short school bus studio home. I was coming from longing around on a couch being stoned for two days and nursing my banged up pride and face. I had one more day in Portland.
        There was a couple standing at the edge of the street. Darkness had recently completed it's decent. I was calmed by the darkness, it made it more difficult to notice my bruised face. The couple looked middle aged. She was round with a tent like shirt that made you think of a hospital. He was bald with a greying goatee. I could not tell what they were doing till I was right next to them, they stood next to each other looking across and down the street. As I passed she kicked a crap apple and he clicked on a flashlight and announced it's trajectory. I smiled and walked on, had a long ways to go still and I was behind schedule.
        I was musing on the cycle of violence I recently felt drawn into. A few days ago I did not feel that I could hurt a person, now, after being jumped I had a rage in me. If I had saw the kids who attacked me I may run at them, swung till I hit, and hit till something popped. I wanted my revenge. It was as if they had shared they're internal strife with me. My world had been too comfy, I was a step away from their anger. Not any more.
        I thought of the competitive nature of humanity. I thought of the thin constructs of society, and how close everything always is to falling apart. Held together simply because we all believed society should be. That we were safer being ruled by our government. We are scared into accepting the social contract once we realize how quickly say a band of kids can take whatever you have, whatever you care about, away from you. We are violent aggressive beasts barely held in check by the laws of society.
        Then I thought about the couple kicking crab apples across the street. The reality humans are fun loving and brimming with curiosity. For all the morbid mayhem that would occur that would envelop us is society fragmented and presently fills our nightly news, humans will always play meaningless little games. That easy going playfulness may be the saving grace of our species. I smiled and walked on.

busted and russling, the karmic build up..

First of all I do not like the use of the word Karma. I remember driving in a sixty seven rambler, a long shapely thing, with my friend Josh Lord and we were having this discussion.
     "I probably don't like the way people use the word. it is slapped on to things and how well do we understand it." Josh was a wonder to talk with. His eyes were pools of curiosity, his body would animate as he shifted the clutch on the steering column. He probably said something having the words to discuss reciprocity.
   But things catch up to you. I was talking to my brother as i walked over the Hawthorne bridge. A woman approached me, she was asking the time, but I was more aware of her glowing red and purple eye. I was not sure what to do. My phone is my clock, and I was talking to Gabe in China where I could not call, since he uses skype and i have a flip phone. I started to look at her quizzically, remembered it was some time after ten and told her it's ten thirty. My brother said it was ten forty five. I hollered it back at her hopping she had time to get to the shelter and kept walking. An hour my eye was puffy and swollen.
    I had to move the bus. It was parked in south east industrial district and it was Sunday night. The other thing was that I am going to go to Seattle and am storing the bus, my home and art studio at my friends David and Stephanie. A cop rolled by me while I was sitting in the darkness. Cops have mixed reviews about my existence. and recently they had started flexing a little. The cop sat down the street, two glowing red orbs. It was the kind of urban scene I never paint but always want to. Once he seemed gone I turned over my big Bertha beast and warmed her up. And then drove an uneventful trip to trip to a road behind Blush,not far. As I popped out of the bus a cop slowed at the end of the block, checked me out an then sped off. He really just drove around the block and was there to observe me again and speed off as I approached the house.
    The patio was dark, and the house a cavernous open door. A cat shot by my feet.I walked out. Like rats abandoning a ship cops started streaming out of the street in front of me in successive order. OK, there was three of them. I flipped open my phone to text. Maybe I just wanted to talk to someone, but I was thinking that they would not fuck with me if I was communicating with someone. Once they drove off I decided to go to the store an purchase a beverage.
     As I walked over there I thought how I should wear the Deadpool costume. It is a an invigorating experience to mask up. i had worn the costume a week ago when I had gone to this store. the store attendant had been excited and requested I put the mask on over my head. This is head to toe spandex, and it feel s strange being on camera with your face completely covered. I mean you could just rob the place. But being in full body spandex suits makes you question the constructs of your own reality anyway.
     This time I just needed some orange juice or water. I didn't think it was the same guy working, couldn't be sure. There were two young ladies in line in front of me. They did not know what they wanted , and offered for me to cut her in line. I smiled and thanked her noting in my mind that she was attractive as she told me something about buying things for friends who are drinking.
    Another for the record: I do not hit on or flirt with women I meet public for the simple reason every day I witness jack ass men insinuating themselves into a woman's space in order to demand her attention by saying and doing something horribly stupid. And maybe I end up a little shy and having not met as many people, and maybe a missed out on a relationship here or there, but it probably wouldn't of worked out anyway, right.
    So when this little pipsqueak out side said " don't fucking look at my girl, I am gonna kick your ass". I was surprised to say the least. "You better run old man 'cause I am gonna fuck you up. I am gonna fuck that under age pussy not you. There was nothing to say,trying to explain that she had let me go first in line just prompted the response she let you do what. I backed away but he wanted to rile me. i was a pussy if I walked and was getting my ass bear if i didn't. His lanky friend wanted to instigate and he started to charge. I don't know exactly what happened. there was an initial scuffle, the orange juice was knocked over, spilled but i recovered it. Started to yell at him that he was an asshole and using his friend to surround me, they were doing. I had spun around so i was moving back Magloughland towards the seven eleven again. a car drove around us at some point, and he charged. I was backing up, fist raised, but still holding my water and orange juice in each hand, like some ridiculous fighting style. He got a punch in, I got one he got another. i remember being happy he had orange juice all over his shirt. I got him in a head lock but his buddy was eager to punch something too. It ended once my shirt was ripped off and he got a good on in my eye.
     i got up from the street. collected my water and shirt. The OJ was done. there had been an older man sitting in the car smoking. He was standing behind his car, the store attendant was in the door way, propped in the frame. We thought we should called the cops." he informed me. "I don't want to deal with the cops" I said. The older man said something, flabbergasted at the teenagers vehemence to fight. I wandered of down the road to find an ice cube and maybe a drink.
     superheros have to be trained. They have to be forged.
     A year and a half ago on new years I was wearing a super hero costume and came across a bike. It looked like a friends that was stolen. Some dude quickly showed up to say it was his bike, in a shifty unconvincing way. Our friend didn't call back. How far did I want to take this. And if I did could I trust that I was doing the right thing? Could i justify the power to take action. I didn't, I backed down and it was totally our friends bike. I felt that I had let myself down. then the next summer i helped someone lost and on drugs get home safe.
    Once you become a costumed super hero issues of morality will craft your inner space, and getting in a violent physical fight is an important step. Deadpool, if not Julian needed this. i do look pretty gnarly though.