I want candy

Mon.

Candy list:
Tootsie Pops
Jolly Ranchers
Baby Ruths
Butterfingers

Halloween was fun. I took the sister around the neighborhood. I dressed as a samurai, she dressed as a cat. She only wanted to go to five houses, one of which had NO CANDY whatsoever. The guy had his light on and his door was part of the way open, yet he had NO CANDY. He seemed pretty embarassed. He should be. If I wasn't with a three-year-old I would have pranked his ass good.

At home it was fuss city. Sugar got into my sister's system and she pitched an unending fit all through Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" and "Psycho." She laughed at the scene where the seagulls are trying to force their way into the house and Rod Taylor's hands are getting pecked to a pulp. She just thought those puppet birds were hilarious. I wouldn't let her see the penultimate scene in "Psycho" where Vera Miles spins Mrs. Bates around, revealing a grinning skeleton. She whined and protested: "turn it back! I wanna see what happens!" If I did that she'd be having nightmares for weeks.

I also did candy duty. I was not pleased with the costumes this year. Kids are not creative like they were back in the deezays. They just want candy. They don't care. I saw a couple kids just wearing normal clothes. Three little boys came wearing their elementary school football uniforms. One kid had two bags and told me to give him double portions. "It's for her baby," he motioned to a girl standing out on the walk. "Oh, alright," I laughed, and dished out a few more Jolly Ranchers. The best costume by far was "The Ghost of Kobe Bryant." No, Kobe Bryant is not dead, but perhaps his credibility and status as a hero to millions of youths is. The costume consisted of a Kobe Bryant Lakers Jersey with white stockings on the legs, arms, and face. The kid looked genuinely disturbing.

Right now I'm crazy wired on Jolly Ranchers and Butterfingers. I don't know why I ate all this candy. Shoot, it was only like three Jolly Ranchers and a two tiny Butterfingers. But man, it's like I've been injected with PCP. Coffee doesn't even have this effect on me.

Since I can't concentrate right now, I'll just sign off. Out.

Lock your doors. Now.

Sun.

There is no zen to bike maintenance, only bushido.

I ventured to the dreaded castle of Walmart today to check on some new tubes for the bike. Wouldn't you know it, in true Walmart fashion, everything went wrong. To begin with, the ATM machine - the only one in the store - wasn't working. So I went back to the bike area, hoping at least they would have some cheap tubes. Again, I didn't take into account the fact that this was Walmart, where your soul is devoured like yakisoba flavored with okonomiyaki sauce. They carried every sort of tube ever created, but not tubes for 26" road bikes.

So I suppose the local bike shop will be my best bet for all my tires and tubes. I was a fool to think Walmart would actually have what I need.

At home I pulled out the old samurai outfit and made sure that sucker still fit. Thanks be to Kannon that the armor itself was in little need of repair. I pranced around in the armor for a few hours this afternoon, mainly acting the fool. I'm thinking of wearing it tomorrow night for when the chilluns come 'round to get candy. I would like to sit out on the front porch like a shogun, demanding each child kowtow before me lest they receive no candy. And don't try to trick me, kiddies.

For Halloween, I have some creepy songs.

Well, the first is not creepy in the traditional sense. It's not even a Halloween song, but a narrative tune by Bobbie Gentry called "Ode to Billie Joe." Some of you may have heard this song before. Every time I hear it, I get the willies.

Seems that nothin' comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge.

The second isn't really a song, but a spoken word/skit performed by Tom Waits entitled "What's He Building?" This is about the creepy neighbor everyone has had at some point - the guy who doesn't take care of his lawn and is never at home. When he is at home, he spends most of his time in the basement griiiiinding away at something with his band saw.

I hope no one gets too scared.

Bwahahahahahaha!

Vicious cycle

Went by the LBS (local bike shop) today and inquired about the prices on tires and tubes. The dude inside was friendly enough, and very softspoken. His hair was all white and when he wasn't speaking to me he spoke to himself or to the computer very softly (yeah, he talked to his computer). But he really wasn't saying anything. When he explained how to remove the tire and tube from a bike using a lever, it was as if he wasn't even speaking it was so soft. Thankfully, there was no one else in there save for NPR playing in the background.

He didn't try to sell me anything, either, which I appreciated. He was very "so, whaddya need?" about everything, not acting like "well, if you want that you'd better get this and this to go with it, 'cause that's how the serious cyclists do." He even got down on the floor and changed a tire just so I'd know how to do it (which will save me about 5 bucks labor cost with the tires). The tires will run me about 40 to 50 bucks. I also discovered that I'll need a new tube, which will run me about five bucks. He said something about the "suppleness" of bike tires, which made me think of something completely unrelated, but apparently this is important when it comes to the feel of the ride. Having not been on many road bikes, I probably won't be able to tell much of a difference between tire A and tire B. I just want some durability. I bought a couple bike levers while I was there, too.

When I got home I stripped off the tires (amazingly simple with this lever doohickey. Me try hitting tires, but tires no come off. Me try yelling at tires, but tires no come off either) and pulled out the tubes. I then scrubbed the hell out of the gears with CLR and polished the wheels with some chrome polish stuff. Yesterday I took a toothbrush, some chemicals, and a whole lot of elbow grease to the cranks, gears, and derailers. I cleaned them sombitches good. Now everything is nice and shiny. I wish I could kill the dude who owned this thing before me. He must have been, I dunno, a yeti or something. The rear derailer looked like it had gone through puberty. Twice. All manner of hair was wound up in there along with some string and caked oil and grease. Deesgusteeng.

I was thinking today about a shirt I had when I was a kid. It had fish skeletons on it and at the bottom it read: "If fish could vote." What does that mean? It's absurd, but even today it makes me think. Damn, I was a weird kid. I also had a Greenpeace t-shirt that had a flying pig on it. It read: "The world is flat, pigs fly, and nuclear power is safe." I'm not a big environmentalist, but the shirt was just funny to me 'cause it had this smiling flying pig with angel wings on it.

I just realized I didn't tell all of y'all what the robot eye pic was. It's the inside of a bottle of ramune. Here are some similar ramune pitchers:



Ramune is delicious. For happy fun time, drink Ramune liberally.

Right now I'm sitting here downing tequila in order to warm myself. I don't usually drink heavily, but it's cold outside and it just feels right. I've always wanted to be saved by one of those St. Bernards with the kegs of whiskey or warm sherry around their neck. That's how I feel right now, like some alcohol is going to warm me up. I think I'm coming down with a cold, too, but it's not that bad.

Awright, I'm out.

My, my, this here punkin pie

Thur.

I have made pie. Being the bored, bikeless, unemployed aspiring graduate student that I am, I decided to try my hand at some baking this fair day. This is something I've never done before, so I'd say I accomplished something. Sure, I had help from the internet and from a more experienced chef (who among other things makes delicious breadbowl soup), but I was the one who collected all the ingredients, mixed them up, and made the messes. The artistry was all mine, so I'd say this pie is mine wholly.

I'm on my third piece right now (see above, it's in mah belly). One thing about making this pie was that it was an internet effort. I was able to bake the pie and the send a picture of it to people in two time zones, in real time while live conferencing, enhancing productivity, collating, faxing, and calculating the effect of the curvature of the earth's surface on the movement of the pie's scent. Ah, the wonders of the cybernet/interweb/information super scenic byway.

It's quite good, too. It could use a little more sugar, but the delicate taste and texture of punkin pie is not suited to uber sweetness. Just enough sweet will do. God, I sound like some sort of Martha Stewart gormand. Bleh, the dirt's not coming off!

For your listening pleasure, I present a fun tune by the Beatles entitled "I've got a feeling." Why? 'Cause I've got a feeling. This is just raw soul, right here. So raw in fact that it gets out of hand towards the end and John and Paul put a stop to it. It's definitely one of my favorite scrapped takes by just about anyone.

And I'm out.

The Podunk Viewmaster

Wed.

Hello, Dave. Eye can see you. This is a robot eye/terminal core/futuristic Sauron/Death Star forcefield generator. I doubt anyone can guess what this really is. If you know, you get a cookie.

I had this whole audio blog post on songs about the future planned, but my ftp is down and putfile is moving at tectonic speed right now. It'll have to wait until next time. All I have for you today are some weird pictures.


Here are some Ramune bottles that have accumulated in my room. I keep them like trophies. The bottles are just so cool. If you haven't tried Ramune, I urge you to go to your nearest Asian grocer and pick some up. Think ginger ale, but with different flavors.


Adeline was partial to this pic so I decided to post it. It has that solitude thing going on. This is a break room inside a mill. I think I could take a break in there. Maybe more of a nap, actually.

A spelling error on a sign not far from my house. I used to pass this sign every day and just laugh. There isn't even proper punctuation here. I live in a veeeery religious town. Within a mile of my house there are nine churches.


The preacher man parks right out front. As the Staple Singers say, "just stand back and let the gentleman do his thang."

Hells yeah!

Dang.

Tue.

Went out riding through the city today. I was getting concerned about the debris on the roads. Glass, rocks, and bits of road gunk were everywhere, and wouldn't you know it, my rear tire went phbbtht. I didn't really crash when it happened, just kinda fumbled off the bike, looking extremely silly. Sigh. Well, I had to carry that bike all the way home. Along the way I passed this primitive Holiness church. An old woman across the street was looking at me funny 'cause I was taking pictures of it while schlepping a bike around.

When I got home I inspected the damage. The rear tire has several small holes in it and the front tire looks a little worse for the wear as well. Even though only the rear tire is shot, I'm going to have to replace both of them. I don't know jack about it. I don't even know the difference between a tubular and a clincher tire. I do know my tires are 700c. M, I think I need yer help on this one.


Other than that, today wasn't too bad. It did seem accident prone, though. I dropped a carton of milk on the floor, spilling it. I also spilled dozens of tiny rice grains all over the kitchen floor. My sister, ever the clumsy three year old, spilled Jello on her self and the floor. And while she was eating a hot dog she nearly stabbed herself in the eye with a fork. I freaked out for about 60 seconds as she held her hand over her eye and wailed. I danced her around the room, trying to pry away her hand to determine if her little eyeball was forever ruined. I thought, "Oh my God, she's going to have to wear some hideous eyepatch like a pirate!" Fortunately, she'd only poked her eyelid. There was no blood and no damage to the eye. For me, it was honestly the biggest relief of the week. Of the year, probably. Within a few minutes she was on the couch watching Noggin as if nothing had happened.

-Geek Section-

J.Star wants me to sing the praises of Haibane Renmei, a little anime dvd I got as a gift from someone who shall go unnamed ;)

If you've never seen anime or you're not really all that into anime, then I don't recommend that you see this one first. Try Evangelion or Cowboy Bebop for starters. But if you enjoy anime and feel all squishy inside when you see girls in sailor suits with angel wings, then yes by all means get this and watch it. If you like an original story that has a sort of a "done on the fly" feel, I'd also recommend this series. If you consider beautiful art paramount, then you also won't be disappointed. There's something here for everyone - whether you're a junkie for moe (pronounced mo-ay), you enjoy looking at pretty animation, or you're just in it for an excellent tale, Haibane won't disappoint.

Haibane Renmei (which means "Charcoal Feathers Federation") centers on the experiences of a girl named Rakka who awakens one day to find that she has been transported to a town she does not know. She has forgotten who she is, what her name used to be, and what her life used to be like before she awoke. All that she remembers is a dream of falling from the sky (hence the name Rakka, which means "falling"). Rakka discovers she is the newest member of a group known as the Haibane, a race of people who have angel wings. She is forced to acclimate to this change and learn all of the strange ways of her new fellows. Rakka soon discovers that this world she now finds herself in is walled off; no one save a strange group known as the "Toga" are permitted to leave.

The story unfolds rather slowly, but this is mainly due to the fact that Haibane Renmei is not a normal anime series. It was initially two issues of a Dojinshi comic (Dojinshi comics are artist-published works that are published outside of the publishing industry), which was the equivalent of a single episode of the show. Building an anime series from two issues of a Dojinshi comic is rare. Usually, anime is produced first and then Dojinshi comics are produced from that. But the producers of Haibane went with something that is impossible at most Japanese animation studios. Yoshitoshi ABe, the artist behind "Serial Experiments Lain" (which has a similar look to Haibane), is the creative force behind Haibane. ABe designed the characters, created the concept, and wrote 500 pages of story for the 13 episodes of Haibane Renmei. This was ABe's first script, and it shows somewhat. There's a certain trepidation in the slowness of the first few episodes, but this goes along well with the character of Rakka, who is also unsure of herself.

What I enjoy most about this series is how informal it is. There is little structure to it. You don't feel like each scene is geared towards advancing a plot, but presenting the characters in everyday situations (well, as everyday as angel people can be). This doesn't mean that there is no story here, there is, it's just presented in a meandering way. ABe's main writing strength seems to be character interaction. What comes through strongest is the interaction between Rakka and the head Haibane Reki. There's also some very fun details in there, such as the use of a halo mold for making pancakes or static electricity causing Rakka's hair to stand up (perfect hair forever no more).


I won't compare the art in this series to Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, or Evangelion, all of which have incredibly rich visuals and candy-like details that will make any fan *drooool*, but the art is excellent at times. Just don't come to Haibane Renmei expecting a visual feast. Some of the animation seems rushed, particularly some of the city backgrounds, but that's small stuff. The characters are all rendered wonderfully, and at times the animation will amaze. There's something beatific about ABe's character designs. It goes well with the angel theme. There is a good mix of digital and standard animation here as well. The giant windmills that dot the landscape of the world of the Haibane are all digitally rendered and add a sort of dream-like quality.

And did I mention cute girls? Well, I'll mention them again. All of the main characters are (surprise, surprise) female. And most are traditionally cute in an anime/moe sense. Only in this series there is no awkward boy character surrounded by a group of females (ala Evangelion or Tenchi Muyo). But it does have some of the stock characters commonly seen in other anime series: The brooding girl who smokes cigarettes, the tomboy who is very frank, the cute precocious girl who wears the short skirt and is always filmed at a low angle, the carefree little sister who aspires to be just like the older characters, and the older woman who is quiet and demure. It wouldn't be anime without at least a nod to the old stock character types and a tongue in cheek self parodying attitude when it comes to female characters in short skirts and sailor suits. The producers joke that Hikari "has many low angle shots when she is standing on the back seat of a moving bicycle or scooter." Despite this, I think Haibane Renmei is more accessible to female anime fans. Male fans (sorry fellas, there's no gun play here) will enjoy the story if they can get past the lack of giant robots, female characters in bunny outfits, naked female androids, extremely detailed artillery, and stylized fighting sequences.

Haibane is simple, pastoral, charming, mysterious - and dare I say - almost Brueghelian in how it melds the everyday with the sublime. I give (what I've seen so far) a 4 out of 5.

Damn, my fingers are tired.

Pez the Cuervo on the left hand side

Mon.

Today was a fun day. I went down to my childhood haunts and revisited memories from a dozen years ago. Gawd, a dozen years. I road down the old bike race routes, saw the houses where I used to play, the old elementary school (now turned into a Catholic school for the hispanic kids), and even the house where the asshole kid who used material possessions to bribe people into being his friend lived. You know, that kid. He wasn't from around there. Had a swimming pool and was overbearing as hell. One time you saw him stuff his pet hamster into a Playmobil jet and launch it off his roof. You hated that kid, but hung out with him 'cause he had a pool.

It all looked pretty much the same. Some people were still living in the same place they'd lived in for a dozen years or more. Some of them had gone off to Seattle or Papua New Guinea or God know's where. While riding through my neighborhood a feisty black dog chased after me. He did a pretty good job of keeping up with me. Man, people really need to keep their dogs in an enclosure in the city.

Regarding Sweet's post on movie hair:

You damn right I have something to say, Sweet. I have two words:

Swayze. Roadhouse.

In the history of cinema, has there ever been a more perfect hairdo than that worn by Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse (some would say it wore Swayze)? The strength, the wisdom, the intensity of Swayze's Dalton is given form in the hair which adorns his head. Whether reading Harrison's "Legends of the Fall," philosophizing, or roundhousing someone and then tearing out their throat, Dalton's hair remains as intense as the emotions burning within his soul. Will Dalton find something to believe in? The hair searches for meaning. Will Dalton ever escape his dark past? The hair rages against that which cannot be undone. Can Dalton take on three knife wielding rednecks with only his fists? The hair thinks so. No, the hair *knows* so.

This is more or less what I look like with my shirt off.

It is the power of the Mullet.

Depp's hair in "Nightmare" is like an impossible creature born of some mad taxidermist's flight of fancy. A stitched together Aqua Net monstrosity that screams “take on me!” in a falsetto voice. Plus, there's something vaguely hockey hairish about it, as if Depp is trying to pull a Gretzky. Remember that in 1984, the year that "Nightmare" appeared in theaters, Gretzky's Oilers took the Stanley Cup. Depp's hair is merely a poor hockey hair mixed with a dash of A-ha's front man Pal Waaktaar.

Is that Depp on the left? No, it's just Waaktaar.

But I digress.

'Tis time for a stiff drink and a Pez.

C'mon baby, light my fire

Sun.

I don't know if it's fall or summer right now. There's still an awful lot of green out there. Part of me wants to hold onto those last remnants, so I went out and did some summer bike riding and summer picture taking. Took the bike down to the Carolina Mill village, stopping here and there along the way to take "emo" shots of things. I didn't encounter any problems with the motorists today, which was nice.


I hadn't been out to Carolina in a while, and when I got there I found that the place has been turned into a flea market. The places is being kept up rather well. Unfortunately, all manner of crap is accumulating out back by the river bank. Among the junk out back was a white AMC Gremlin X. Those little cars are pretty fast (304 cubic inch V8). Back in the day, the Gremlin X could hold its own against pretty much any muscle car on the road. Today people buy them up and use them as dragsters. Someone should buy that little white Gremlin and sexy it up. I thought the whole scene just summed up the character of this area: an old textile mill turned flea market with a broken down Gremlin in the back. Oh yeah, and it was down by the river, too.

I also saw this door that lead to nowhere.


The owner of the mill is portioning out space (at a whopping 40 bucks per day) to dealers who want to come and hawk their wares. There wasn't much of note inside, just lots of old appliances and bric-a-brac. I liked how the light was in there, so I made a fool of myself by taking pictures of all manner of things. Wherever junk accumulates, I'm there.


Up the road a piece is the Carolina mill village, a town of lower middle class households situated on a promontory above the river. At the center of the main drag is a giant silo which has always fascinated me. It's wrapped in Kudzu, some sort of red vine, and fastened to it is a junk-art cross.

That's just so Southern.

On the way back I stopped off at an abandoned tobacco barn. How did I know it was abandoned? The floor collapsed when I stepped on it, that's how. This particular barn had three levels, including a basement. I went down in there via a primitive ladder. In true Indiana Jones fashion, one of the rungs snapped under my weight (which indicates how old and cruddy it is, 'cause I don't weigh much). Fortunately, I was able to keep from falling. While down in there, I could hear someone playing "Light My Fire" by the Doors in the distance. Strange days.

Try to set the night on fiiiiiuuuuuuh! (keyboard solo).


Here are some things I saw and heard today while out on the bike:

- Three Blackhawk helicopters in the distance.
- The bleating of baby goats.
- Three horses.
- The crowing of a rooster.
- A redneck blaring "Ain't too proud to beg" in his front yard.
- Many small, angry dogs.

To begin the week on a good footing, I have two musical selections for ye.

Four Tops - Something About You. I just like this little tune.

The Pillows - Juliet. Man, this song just kicks me in the pants every time I hear it. It's like, where did all the real rock music go? It moved to Japan and started this band.

Try to set the night on fiiiiiuuuuuuh (keyboard solo).

That's all for now. Sleep I will.

Wrath of the Khans

Sat.

These are the Converse I've been wearing since the middle of last year. They've travelled 13,000 miles, visited 22 states, walked in the Grand Canyon (red canyon dust is still embedded in the laces), San Fran, LA (both twice), Seattle, the Rockies, and the future birthplace of James T. Kirk (Ah, Kirk my old friend. Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish best served cold? It is very cold in space.) These are certainly well-travelled shoes. Today I visited the shoe store and saw all the brand new shiny Cons. I got to thinking about buying some new ones before these turn to dust beneath my feet. Up until today I hadn't given much thought to replacing them - even though the left shoe has a gaping hole in the side and my sock is visible beneath.

But right now I can't bring myself to do it. I would like to see these shoes last until the end of the year if possible. A 2004-2006 13,000+ mile run is nothing to scoff at. I'm thinking I could give them a viking funeral on New Year's day 2006. It's the only fitting manner for a Khan to die, you know.


I took me bike out for a quick test run on Friday. 'Tis very fast. But not all was peachy keen in the burg of Podunk. For while on the road outside the 'burbs, an asshole driving a massive super duty truck (one of those Ford 3500s with the six wheels) ran me off the road. I could hear him honking and thought "okay, I'll get over as far as I can without impeding the movement of his 20 ton gas guzzler. Afterall, we should share the road, no?" Well, I got over as far as I could (on top of the white line). He kept honking. At this point I look behind me and see him coming; he's pulling a trailer loaded down with riding mowers. With no other recourse I pulled onto the shoulder. As he drove by I could see his face in the rearview. I know he saw me mouth several words 'cause he was looking back at me. Whatever happened to respecting the totally exposed dude on a bike? Whatever happened to me having as much of a right to be on the road as your ginormous ass? Where are the strong? Who are the trusted? What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?

If it doesn't rain tomorrow I'll be out on the bike armed with a samurai sword. No one messes with the dude on the bike who has a samurai sword strapped to his back.

Sicherheitsmassnahmen

Thur.

I spent the whole day looking at this floor. In the morning, I was sweeping it and tearing up bits of carpet padding; at lunch, slopping a mixture of 20 year old Spic and Span and water all over it; in the afternoon, sweeping up wet bits of carpet padding and then pulling up staples with needle nose pliers. My body has been bombarded by bleach, ethanol, 30 year old cans of Renuzit ("American Beauty" scent), phosphates, dust, mold, pollen from the Pleistocene, whatever stuff formica is made of, insect husks, caffeine, wasps, more bleach (this time mixed with other chemicals in a soup meant to kill aforementioned mold (which was legion).

Even with surgical gloves and a dust mask (ah, my trusty dust mask, I OWE my LIFE to IT) I was still coughing and scratching my eyes and skin all day. That house is truly something filthy. I gouged my hands a couple times while handling carpet strips that were nailed down some time during the Johnson adminstration. Andrew Johnson, perhaps. The skin on my face, particularly around my eyes, looks irritated. There's a spot above my right eye that has broken out in a sort of rash-like thingy. I'm too pretty for this work. I should be at home soaking in Ivory liquid.

The wasps were the scariest, though. While I was pressure washing the house yesterday I encountered a sizable nest of the flying, biting, stinging hellions. Taking on a nest of wasps requires a sort of blitzkrieg assault whereby you annihilate them and their nest with pressurized WD-40. Well, we thought we'd killed them all yesterday, but they came back today. The nest must have regrouped. The survivors decided to pay me a visit. While I was cleaning in the sun room I stood up from wiping down a windowsill to shut the storm windows. As I was trying to work the window mechanism I noticed something out of place in my field of vision. Not one foot from my head were three wasps, watching me. Naturally, I backed the hell up. Without anything to kill them with, I closed the room off from the rest of the house.

They win this round.

In order to combat the must in the house, I took several cans of aerosol, punctured them with the claw end of a hammer, and just let them spray like crazy all over the place. Man, that house smells like a nightmare now. If the wasps survive the mustard gas-like odor that has by now percolated all up in there, I'll be impressed. And terrified.

The Italian word for wasp is "vespa." That word gives me the vapors. Vespa vapors.

You may remember the creepy doll picture I posted. How could you? Well, my sister totally demystified that creepy doll today. First, she put the doll in timeout on her Big Bird chair. "She's being not nice," was the charge. She then took the doll and began to take off its clothes. She pulled off the doll's bloomers and exclaimed, "Hey, look, it's panties! Look, panties!" She then took the white panties and waved them around, repeatedly drawing attention to the fact that she was holding panties. When that was finished, she inspected the dolls rear end for evidence of "pooties." "She has pooties on her butt," she remarked several times. I'm not sure if the pootie situation was rectified. The doll was then left on the floor in a most unflattering pose for the remainder of the evening:



Yep. A doll's bee-hind.

I will have bike questions soon. I am beginning to compile a list.

I'm out.

Oh, sicherheitsmassnahmen is the German word for "safety precautions."

Dispatch from the Mulletocracy

Today I worked like a beast with a friend of my dad's renovating an old house. It's fun and rewarding from a historical perspective knowing that I'm restoring an old neglected house to a "like new" state. It also pays a little, which ain't too shabby.

Speaking of restoration, I bought a bicycle today, too. A Peugeot 12 Vitesses. C. and I saw it at - of all places - the antique store the other day. It's in good shape. It needs some minor polishing work on some of the oxidized chrome bits and eventually some new tires, but that's not too pressing at this point. There are so many French words on this bike I don't know. Someone get me a dictionary....Oh, and if anyone (wink, wink) knows much anything about bikes, I'd appreciate any info you might have.

I'll have a pic of it up soon.

I saw this bugger while over at the dam on Sunday (If you are scared or particularly freaked out by large insectoids then don't enlarge the pic below). I'm proud of this shot. Why? Because it's my first insect shot that came out in-focus. Not only that, but it's a *huge* rust colored praying mantis hanging upside down on a rusty fence.


There's one in your hair!

And finally a shot inside a ruined barn at sunset. We found this barn behind a rundown house across from the brand new hospital and Target store. The barn could be restored; both the house and the barn will inevitably be demolished for aesthetics. This was the last shot the little Nikon's batteries could handle for the day:


The barn's last moment of glory captured for y'all.

This is not a photoblog, but a whatever-I-want-to-do-with-it blog.

To illustrate my point, I've thrown together another audioblog post on two of the white-trashiest songs *ever*

Sheriff - When I'm With You

Like the gentle caress of a feathered mullet against your cheek, Sheriff's "When I'm With You" will make you feel like a special lady (or alternatively, that you feel a special feeling for your lady). When I hear this song I think of a woman in a sleeveless Damn Yankees t-shirt and a mullet guy in too-tight acid wash jeans and ripped jeans jacket down by the lake in their IROC Camaro just diggin' some afternoon delight. It's not a pretty picture, but it's how so many members of my generation were conceived.

What would America be without the power ballad? You don't have to answer that question. We all know it would suck. Hard.

The funniest bit is that Sheriff was a Canadian band.

Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar on Me

"I'm hot, sticky sweet, from my head to my feet yeah!" Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" is one of the more blatantly nastay tunes of the hair metal era. This tune is like a pair of Zebra striped spandex trousers equipped with a codpiece covered in sequins.

But the real picture associated with this song is a bunch of shirtless/wife-beater wearing drunk men with rat tails and handlebar moustaches at the local strip club. If you've seen it before, imagine any of the bar scenes from "Road House" while listening to this one.

That's all for now. Peace out.

Creeptastic.

I'm not easy to frighten, but I got gooseflesh several times this week. Yesterday I saw this doll, which belonged to my grandmother, sitting behind our front door. It's been there for quite some time, but I didn't really notice it until yesterday. It made me do a double take. Few things are creepier than those unmoving doll eyes and that angelic doll face. I took this picture because the doll creeped me out; but I found that afterwards the picture itself was creepier. The light on the doll's face and on the walls seems otherworldly, and the fact that the doll seems to be hiding behind the door only makes it worse. Who would put a doll here? What's she doing back there?

Now I'm looking over into the corner over my shoulder and seeing that she's still there. Through my 20/80 vision she looks like a blur, but I know those glass eyes are looking right at me....


Inspired by the look of the doll, I fetched the creepiest object in my house: Mr. Weeble Clown. A smiling, androgynous, big-nosed, evil clown toy that was made in West Germany in the late 1940s. He's Pagliacci and Stephen King's "It" distilled into one object. I hate that doll. If I had my way I'd sell it and be rid of it. He sits on a shelf in my sister's room, along with several harlequin type dolls. For some reason, my sister doesn't regard him as frightening. I think this may be due to her youth. She has yet to see how weird and unnerving clowns can be. I can't believe she sleeps in that room.

The black and white shots of Mr. Weeble Clown definitely scare me, more so than the doll itself. In the shot at right he almost seems animated, as if he's turning to look back at someone. And I like how that band of ligh casts a huge black shadow behind him.

"Me? I am immortal, child. I am the eater of worlds, and of children. And you are next."

J.Star brought this wonderful site to my attention. Its focus is on dilapidated urban structures, particuarly mental hospitals in the northeast. It's an excellent site and I suggest that you look through the galleries and get creepd out and/or inspired to take photos of urban ruins. It inspired me to go out and take pictures of some of the dilapidated structures around town. I've been exploring abandoned and rundown buildings for years; poking through the rubble for interesting tid bits of junk to take home with me. The exercise was primarily characterized by looting, but also by the thrill of exploring the unknown. I had thought of photographing some of the old mill buildings in this area, but until now I lacked a decent camera.


Today, with loaner digi cam in hand, I went through the old Glencoe Mill. Glencoe Mills Village, a company community of several dozen houses on the bank of the Haw River, was established in 1880 by James Henry Holt. It was in operation from 1880 to 1954. Today, the village is inhabited by a few folks who have endeavored to restore the old mill houses to a Martha Stewart level of late 19th century livability. A small country store and outlet that sells carpet operates out of the old company store and one of the newer warehouses.

The original mill community was centered around six buildings: The old original factory (built in 1880) three warehouses/storage buildings, the company store, an administrative building, and a hydro plant (which is attached to the bottom level of a warehouse). I concentrated most of my efforts on the truly dilapidated 1880s mill building. The outer walls of this structure are riddled with holes, as if it survived a bombing attack. At the rear of the original structure is an add-on that connects it to a more modern warehouse (when I say "modern" I mean 1930s).

This is the sort of place that kids consider haunted. During the day it is somewhat creepy and unsettling to be in there, but I've never had my hair stand on end while walking around. After coming home and seeing the pictures, I did get a little unsettled, though. The images are more disturbing than what I saw with my own eyes.

In some places the floor is unstable. My intended entry point had no floor; so I was forced to crawl through a window.

The main dyeing room is lined with several large vats that look like giant pressure cookers. At the far end of the main room is a huge square pit, roughly eight feet deep, that is totally exposed. In the dark it's hard to see it. Luckily I haven't ever fallen into it. What's strange is that there isn't a single "No Trespassing" sign or sign of any sort warning those entering the building about the dangers within....


I took this shot immediately after crawling through the window into the mill. This is the main dyeing room. This end of the building is well lit because of the open windows and holes in the walls. Hanging from the ceiling are the parts of a conveyer system that moved cotton from vat to vat. There's something unsettling about this shot. I think it may be the lit windows on the right and the dark windows directly ahead.


Looking from the well-lit end of the building down into the dark. In the foreground is one of the dyeing vats.

Busted machinery and wires in an anteroom. This picture creeps me out.


A narrow space. They didn't have building codes in the 1880s.

The main entrance has no floor. Also note the gaping holes in the ceiling.


It's frustrating how you try and try to get a shot right and in the end it just comes out blurred or crappy. Well, with this shot I wasn't even trying. I snapped it real quick through a crack in a door. I'm really pleased with this shot. The roof has collapsed in this section and light is spilling in through a hole in the roof.

Nature peeking in through a hole in the wall. Much of time you don't get a scary feeling from this building since nature has begun to reclaim it. Flashes of bright green peek in everywhere. In some places there are trees growin inside the building.

The water tower.

I took many more pictures, but putting them all here would be a pain. Since I don't have a super nice premium flickr account, I dropped all of my photos with photobucket. Go here to view all of the mill pics if you have the inclination.

Big ol' meme, part deux

10. The things which brought me more satisfaction in the long run.

• Moving all over the place as a kid. Even though I was forced to leave my city friends, I'm glad I got out of the city and got raised up country.
• Giving up "artist" as a career path. I still create things, but art will never be a career. I prefer history.
• Being introverted.

11. The heroes who inspire me. Lawd.

• A lot of historical figures. Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Wolfe (you heard right, Quebec), Theodor Herzl, James K. Polk (he had a mullet, was from North Carolina, and got the Oregon territory), Jesus of Nazareth, Miyamoto Musashi. There are so many more. Also the guy who invented the wheel and the guy who invented fire.
  
• Johnny Cash. I wish I could be him.
  
• Hulk Hogan. He is a Golden God. His leg drop defeats all foes.
• Steve McQueen. He's a baaaaad mother (shut yo mouth!).
  
• Any self-made man or woman who came from humble beginnings.
• Anyone who is out there putting their life in danger day-in, day-out so the rest of us can enjoy life - whether it be patrolling the streets of Basra or hauling snow crabs onto a wave-tossed boat in the Arctic Ocean.

12. The things I would like to experience before I die.

• I want to climb to the top of Mount Everest and play Dio's "Holy Diver" at full blast, all the while playing the highest air guitar - ever. Beat that mountain jam.
• I want to see Geraldo Rivera and G. Gordon Liddy fight in a pit, armed only with tridents. Can we make this a reality, people? Think about it: investigative reporter/camera whore versus Mr. Watergate Break-in. What could be cooler than that?
  
• Japan, China (Wu-ti's tomb, Chang an, Cheng du, Li-jien, the Gobi etc. etc.), Ireland, Jerusalem, Scotland, Elba, Turkey, Ethiopia (where they keep the "original" ark of the covenant), Egypt, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Mecca, Medina, Taif (even though they won't let me in those places), Alaska, Ctesiphon, Petra, Malta, Rome, Athens, etc.
• Requited love.
• The hot sting of battle.
• And some other stuff.

13. What can I do, starting today, to bring about the above projects?

• Continue my education.

14. The novels or movies which touched me most.

• "Ran" by Akira Kurosawa. Pretty much all of Kurosawa's films.
• "FLCL"
• "The Great Escape."
• "The Dirty Dozen."
• "Kelly's Heroes."
• Stuff with Steve McQueen, Kirk Douglas, Jimmy Stewart, Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, etc.
• I have too many favorite movies to count.

15. The everyday situations which make me stress-prone.

• Dealing with a three-year-old.
• Thinking about grad school applications.

16. What makes me relax, go back to my secret world. I'm pretty much always in my secret world.

• Music.
• Reading a book.
• Cooking.
• Thinking about how much there is to see and explore, which also makes me anxious.

17. Quotes or proverbs which inspire me. This is a hard one. Here are just some quotes I happen to like:

• "I'm expressin' with my full capabilities and now I'm living in correctional facilities." - Dr. Dre.
• "Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." - The Book of Matthew.
• "Let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day." - Pat Kavanagh.
• "Anime: crack is cheaper." - unknown.
  
• "I'd rather be a free man in my grave than living as a puppet or a slave." - Jimmy Cliff.
• "I'm mad." - James Brown, "The Big Payback."
  
• "The world is not my home, I'm just-a passin' through." - Tom Waits.
• And many more!
  

18. What these lists have taught me.

That lists cannot begin to describe how I feel about my life and others. And also that I like/ want to do a lot of stuff.

I don't have anyone to pass this one to, since Fitena already sent it to everyone I know in blogland (except Sweet, but he's "busy").

Big ol' meme, part one

Since it is so huge, here's part one of Fitena's meme:

1. The Happiest moments I lived this year.

• Being called a "scholar" by a professor after presenting my senior research.
  
• Graduating from university cum laude.
• Completing two suits of samurai armor and then wearing them at Animazement (much to the delight of the Otaku in attendance).
• Standing under the blanket of sky at Yellowstone National Park in the dead of the night and gazing up into the Milky Way.
  
• Scoring in the 89th and 86th percentile on the GRE verbal and analytical writing sections respectively.
• Right now (no lie).

2. The people I love. Hoo boy. Okay. In no particular order:

• My dad
  
• My mom
• Sister
• Other family: aunts, uncles, cousins.
  
• Poppy (My grandfather. Yeah, that's right, I say "Poppy." You wanna fight about it?)
• My friends. Y'all know who y'all are. I got madd love for ma peeps.
• This space is open.
  

3. What I love about the people I love. Dang, Fitena, this is hard.

• My dad is my dad. He's brilliant. He plays guitar and writes poetry in Spanish and English. In some ways, he's cooler than me. It's hard to boil it all down to a few sentences. It is the sum total of our lives up to this point, and that's hard to express here. He makes great jambalaya.
  
• That's my momma, fool! We don't always understand each other, but she raised me up. Again, to summarize why I love my momma in a few sentences is hard. She does make really good pot roasts and stews.
  
• I'm like a second dad to my sister. When my parents scold her, she comes crying to me. She's like my sister and daughter at the same time in a way.
• My uncles are curly-haired viking types. They're great guys. My cousins, especially my red Afro viking cousins, are like my brothers. We have similar mannerisms and ways of thinking. My aunts are all kind and make good food.
  
• Poppy changed a lot in the last few years after Nana died and he had a heart attack that *almost* did him in. He used to be a grumpy, angry man, but now he's nicer to be around. He used to take me fishing when I was a kid. He makes great food, Southern stuff.
• Some of my peeps are characters. All of them are generous and treat me like I'm worth more than I am. Most of them are brilliant and hilarious to be around and some are insane. All of them put up with me and that's certainly worth something.
  
• Again, here we have a vacancy.
  

4. The little imperfections I see in the people I love.

• My dad is a bonafide slob.
• My mom is a bonafide neat freak.
• My sister poops her pants and whines. A lot.
• My non-immediate family can be a little lame (especially my aunts).
• Poppy still smokes, despite his heart attack and his wife's death from cancer.
• I won't get into my friends. Would take toooo long.
  
• A free space for someone who wants to get on my nerves (I'll probably secretly enjoy it).
  

5. My positive input to my relationship with them. Heh. I'm more of a bad influence.

• I keep my dad up to date on technology and new music. I correct him when he makes a pronouncement. I serve as his counterbalance when it comes to discussions of politics or religion. I get the same thing from him. Since I graduated from my University ahead of him (he's still a junior), I give him advice on what classes to take so he can get his master's degree. I make him laugh.
  
• I mitigate (and sometimes exacerbate) my mom's obsession with keeping the house clean. I help her take care of my sister. I also make her laugh.
• I teach my sister words like "booty" and also how to dance.
• I can't say I have much of a positive impact on my non-immediate family other than that I enlighten them with my presence.
• I help to make my grandfather funkier, but I can't make him quit smoking (nobody can).
• I enlighten and entertain my friends with my presence. They worship the ground I walk on as if it were Keira Knightley's abdominal sweat. No, I think I actually make things worse for them. They seem to like it, though, the masochists....
• A free space for someone who wants to be edified (or not) by me.
  

6. The things in my life I am grateful for.

• A family.. Sounds hokey, but at least I can say that *sometimes* I feel like a motherless child and not *all the time.*
• A home with indoor plumbing, a bed, central air, and a refrigerator with lots of food and orange juice and various sandwich meats, tofu, and soy products.
• Suffrage.
  
• A peaceful existence.
• The outside, the woods, music, Soul Music, liberty, rundown buildings, new buildings, women, secondhand stores, barbecue restaurants, hobby shops, Bob Ross paintings, the smell of ozone, black hair, the state of North Carolina, everything below the Mason-Dixon Line, the feeling of humidity, the noises cicadas make, snow, the feeling of lactic acid flowing into my muscles, lips, the color green, love, and being able to fall in love. Life, I suppose. There's more to that list, but it would take a lifetime.
  

7. The challenges I've taken up in different fields.

• Studying for the GRE and doing a halfway decent job on it.
• Researching local history and writing a thirty page paper on Reconstruction.
• Researching and building samurai armor from scratch.
• Studying, researching, building, making.
  

8. If I could revisit my mistakes, what would I do differently?

• I'd take lots of food with me into the Grand Canyon and drink less water.
• I'd go after the girl with the dark hair in the Converse shoes.
• Buy some damn lithium batteries.
  

9. The ten things which bring me instant pleasure every day.

• Waking up, making a banana shake, and then drinking it.
  
• Music.
• A hot shower.
  
• Talking to some of you on IM.
• Figuring out new ways to make Ramen and then eating it.
• Crunches.
  
• Seeing something in my inbox that's not spam.
• Taking pictures.

I'll have part two in a day or so.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign

I think fall is officially here. Today and yesterday it didn't get out of the sixties, rained all day, and leaves began to accumulate in the yard. Everything is a waterlogged mess from the last five days. There is just no end to this rain and the slop that is accumulating all over everything. The weatherman doesn't expect sunlight to break through the clouds for another couple of days. I think I'm beginning to enjoy it/adapt to it, though.

Back to jackets and cold wet feet.

Yesterday I went out to the sign graveyard near my house to take pictures. Why is it that everything I take pictures of is some sort of graveyard, whether it be Goodwill, a cemetery, or a lot littered with detritus? To be honest, I can't say. I just enjoy bizarre ephemera (there's that word, that delicious word). I can't say I have any deep reason for finding these things interesting, it's just a strange affinity.



The sign graveyard is behind an old warehouse next to a rundown smoke shop/gas-n-go that is still selling gas for $3.09. The inside of that place will cure human skin like leather, preserving it well into the next millenium with carcinogens the FDA doesn't know about yet. From the road you can see this gorilla fellow, an ad for American Tourister (anyone remember the gorilla luggage test?). This ad, probably the most visually appealing in the graveyard, is painted on the back of a trailer. It has the look of a mural, as if someone decided to come along and paint a gorilla. He's actually quite affable with his big smile. Looking at him again, I think he may also resemble a yeti (or his North American cousin the sasquatch). There are rumors of a "Hairy Man" who inhabits the wilds of our county's north country. I'm pretty much the only person to have ever heard him (my mother being the only person to have actually seen this). He only prowls at night when the moon is new and the roads are choked with fog. Ask Sweet, he'll back up my story with absolutely no evidence. Go ahead, ask.

Further into the jungle of crass commercialism I came across everybody's favorite smorgasbord, Golden Corral (headquartered here in NC). The signs have all been ripped up, presumably by either wind or vandals, and the lights that once lit it up have all been torn out. There' so much broken glass and lightbulbs lying around that walking around there is like walking on cornflakes. Very sharp cornflakes. While I was writing this I visited the Golden Corral website and actually began to salivate at the site of steaming hot chicken tenders.



There are also piles of pipes that once held the signs upright. In the distance, at the other end of the telescope, you can see a Golden Corral sign peaking in.


This one is probably my favorite of the whole group of fifteen or so. Of the group, this one has the best lighting and interesting angular stuff happening. In case you're wondering, it's the inside of an Exxon sign. I stuck my arm inside and happened to get lucky. Strange how ugly urban ruin can be aesthetically pleasing.

It's that kind of fractured beauty. You know, the "I shall release a white dove amidst the ruins of a burned-down ghetto tenement house" kind of beauty.

Today I found that the camera's batteries were utterly drained and no replacement batteries were to be had in the house. To add insult to injury, I saw three Buddhist monks at my school's library drawing mandalas with sand grains. No camera, no @!#%&* batteries. Yeah, yeah, I know all about "letting go" of earthly things, but how many times am I gonna get the chance to photograph Buddhist monks drawing pictures with sand?

*Sigh*

Ah, but I feel much better today than yesterday.

I shall now go consume a fig newton or three.

Road Warrior Challenge 2005

The last chapter in our cross-country adventure:

One thing about Texas that's really great is the fact that it's the South. This means Texas has Waffle House. The first thing we did that morning was double back and head for the nearest Casa de Waffle. A. will not eat at Waffle House, so she went up the road a piece and headed for - where else - Subway. C. and I both got big fat waffles, which we slathered liberally in Country Crock and maple syrup.

After putting some South in our mouth, we got back on the road and made for Oklahoma. The Waffle House got to me quickly, so we stopped off at a Texas rest stop. Texas has some nice rest stops. They are nicely decorated (art deco tile work, vintage ads from the 50s), clean (no poo on the walls), and tornado resistant. Oh, and the stalls, they actually lock. After taking my time admiring this nice museum/rest stop I climbed into the back of MacGyver and fell asleep. I slept a good long while, waking up in a rest stop just beyond Oklahoma City.

From there it was fairly uneventful. Arkansas was a long, drawn out suck. I think I dislike driving through Arkansas more than any other state, even Kansas. At least in Kansas you get to play "Carry On My Wayward Son" and actually mean it. Ar-Kansas, what the hell is that? Most of the way through Arkansas I just sat in the back of the truck and sang really loud. No one can hear you back there, so it's a good place to flex the vocal chords.

Around 1:00 in the morning we crossed over the Mississippi River and entered Tennessee. We didn't stop in Nashville, but headed on towards Jackson. We found a cheap motel (with "continental" breakfast) in the bad side of town. While unpacking and moving everything into our room, we saw at least six police cars and twice we saw flashing blue lights; once behind the motel and once next door at a gas station. While C. and A. were up in the room unpacking I went back outside twice to pick up several bags I had forgotten. Each time, thugs in tricked-out Buicks would roll by looking at me.

Luckily, I had my daito. From a distance a daito looks like a real samurai sword. No one will mess with a guy who's carrying a samurai sword and *looks like* he knows how to use it. It doesn't matter if you have a 9mm street sweeper or a sawed-off shotgun, a guy with a samurai sword can potentially cut the bullet out of midair.

I retrieved my possessions unmolested.

The next morning was the final run. It was an all-day drive from Jackson to Podunk. This part of the trip wasn't much fun. Everyone was worn the hell out. A. and I really didn't say much to each other. There was an unspoken dislike growing between us I think. Nobody really said much that day. I think we were all ready for some familiarity and an end to the incessant noise of the road. I tried to stay in high spirits, even though I knew the long awaited second Road Warrior Challenge was coming to an end.

A rainstorm made the approach to the Appalachians treacherous. We came across three wrecks between Knoxville and the NC border, two of which brought traffic to a complete standstill. On a bridge in the Smoky Mountains, a truck sat facing towards oncoming traffic, its rear wheels ripped from underneath it. Gasoline was dumped all over the road and the odor mixed with the faint smell of ozone. The driver sat there, eyes fixed straight ahead.

At the time we took the number of accidents as a bad sign for the upcoming scaling of the Appalachians. It's hard enough climbing them in good weather, but wet, foggy, twisty roads are just nasty.

Going over the Appalachians went fairly quickly. I was (again) asleep as we crossed the North Carolina border. From the border it was still two hours before we made it back to Podunk. We dropped A. with her car, unpacked MacGyver, returned C.J.'s truck top, and finally it came to an end after midnight on the 19th of August.

It was a good one. Here are the Road Warrior Challenge 2005: MacGyver's Revenge tallies:

• States plundered and burned: 18
• Miles traveled: 6,000 +
• Days on the road: 12
  
• Campgrounds/RV parks: 7
• Cheap motels: 4
• Highest elevation 11,000 feet
  

Added to last year's totals, we have:

• States plundered and burned: 22
• Days on the road: 22
• Miles traveled: 12,000 +
• Campgrounds/RV parks: 13
• Cheap Motels: 7

"Again you have made me unleash my dogs of war."

The Great Escape

I had a dream last night. I dreamt I was looking out of my window and spotted some wild onions growing out in the yard. I went out and picked the wild onions, some of which were large and grotesque-looking. When I had accomplished picking all the wild onions, a fly buzzed in my ear. If you've ever played Mario 2 then you'll kinda get what this looked like, except there were no Shyguys or Bob-Ombs around.

The last few days have been packed chock full o' greyness and malaise, but at least the food has been good. I bought some delicious Nasoya tofu at the grockery store. For the longest time I was one of those miserable fools who poked fun at tofu and tofu eaters as runny, tasteless, and milksoppy. I'm not sure which order to put those adjectives in. I would see tofu and think to myself: "SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!" It just seemed like boring, neutered future-food to me, one step away from a vacant "Logan's-Run" style existence in which we all live in domes and are killed at the age of 30.

Oh, how wrong I have been. I feel like a man reborn. For when that ambrosia touched my tongue I truly saw the culinary light. Following a serving suggestion from J.Star, I fried some chunks of tofu with onion and egg in teriyaki. As a personal touch I added carrot slices (I do not julienne my carrots, I just chop 'em). I served it all over some warm somen noodles (Ramen's thinner, whiter cousin). And it was good. And it filled me up. In fact, afterwards I actually crashed on my bed and took a nap - I never do that.

I can hear winter out there somewhere. I felt it in my bed this morning. I stuck my feet out from under the covers and actually felt a slight chill reaching out to get me. Grabbing at my feet from under the bed; cold hands. Cold, creepy hands.


But I like the winter, so I won't complain too vociferously.

Right now I'm in escape mode. I feel like I'm drawing up a daring escape plan with all this grad school application work. I have the theme song to "The Great Escape" on my mp3 player. I kept playing it over and over again today. My ticket out of this malaise lies in filling out all of these forms, writing a statement of purpose, and fixing any problems in my writing sample. The statement of purpose is gonna be the hardest part. I have goals, I just need to take them from my brain and make them concrete. Eloquently. And that ain't easy.

Speaking of escapes, does anyone ever wish they were born in another time period? I do about every day. I've always wanted to live in 18th century America - somewhere on the frontiers of Appalachian mountains - or in Byzantium during the 12th century as a monk at the University of Constantinople, or as a bushi (warrior or samurai) during Sengoku-jidai period Japan. Right now I'm thinking it would be nice to have lived in the 30s and 40s, just so I could fight Nazis. Who hasn't, at some point in their life, not wanted to fight Nazis?

Do y'all have a time period you wish you were born in?

The sky is cryin'

Today is a good day for an audio blog post. It rained here all day, so no sun. Pissing rain = no picture taking outside with my loaner camera. I did take a few pitchers indoors:


That's my sister slurping noodles. Yes, I am trying to bludgeon you over the head with cuteness.


The struggle is soon over. Its thirst for chicken stock slaked, the beast leaves the bones to rot.

Today I wanted to post a couple tracks that go well with rainy days such as this 'un. The ftp server my friend is letting me use is down for the time being (why, I don't know), So I'm-a have to use Putfile. Thankfully, Putfile just upgraded the amount of space they give to free accounts from 10mb to 25mb.

First, we have "Trouble's Braids" by Tom Waits. The upright bass and the rapid fire lyrics give this song the feeling of rain, not to mention these lines:

I hung my rain-soaked jacket
On some old barbed wire
Poured cold rusty water
On a miserable fire

...

The creek was swollen by daybreak
And I could just barely see;
I floated downstream on an old dead tree.

Next is "No Place to Hide" by Alison Krauss & Union Station (AKUS). The rhythm of the banjo and guitar sounds like water dripping on a tin roof. The lyrics are pretty evocative, too:

When I was a child I used to love to watch the rain
I'd stand under the downspout, let the water cool my brain

The picture is vivid to me. I can see this snaggletoothed boy being inundated by rainwater pouring down from a swollen gutter- his hair plastered to his head. I like the idea that brains need cooling, too.

Speaking of which, mine's running hot. That's all for now. Peace out.

Son of man, can these bones live?

Today I took zee camera out to a couple of places I thought would have interesting things to take snaps of. Unfortunately, the light was crappy about everywhere, so I went to a fitting place for gloomy photos: the cemetery.

The Providence Cemetery in the county seat dates from 1763 and is filled with all of the town's brightest (white) luminaries - from revolutionary war veterans, to textile magnates, to Klansmen. While there I paid a visit to some of the folks I've researched (and condemned). In a way it feels like meeting people you know, even though they're quite dead and buried deep in the ground. I like to kneel over a scroundels grave and whisper to him that only the historian and the devil knows how much of a dirty dog he is.

So many of the stones have been eroded to the point where they're only featureless tablets. Some remarkably old ones are still quite legible. A few of the obelisks had been knocked over here and there by vandals, and in the corner of the cemetery was a pile of broken and homeless headstones, most of which were still legible.

To me, a cemetery is not a scary place. It's sometimes solemn, but as a kid I always played in cemeteries. But it is humbling to see all these folks who lived and loved and hated to die turned to grass. And all that's left of 'em is a lichen-covered piece of stone, if they're lucky. It doesn't depress me, though. There's a beauty to a cemetery that no goth girl in her black dress and white make-up could understand.


You don't spit in a cemetery. You don't go trampin on someone's bones. You respect it all, even the scoundrels. Every grave I found that was covered in debris or grass, I cleaned it off. It's just not right to dishonor the spirits of one's predecessors, let alone ancestors. That's why the pile of broken stones upset me so much; now they are wandering shades. That thought creeps me out, the nameless, unknown dead who have no marker to mark them. Unfortunately, that's the majority of the dead.

Then it was from the cemetery to another sort of graveyard; the valley of dry bones that is Goodwill.

I figured there would be something there to take pictures of. I was immediately drawn to the records section, where I found Richard Simmons' workout album "Reach." This has got to be the all-time worst album cover for several reasons:

1. It's Richard Simmons.
2. Richard Simmons has a purple halo.
3. Sweatyness and Skankyness displayed in a frank manner.
4. It is covered in fugly people "reaching" out like the condemned in Hell.

I immediately dropped this record on the floor, for looking into it was like beholding the horrors of Gehenna. I was able to get close enough to snap some shots of the hell within:


Richard's purple halo. He also has what appears to be warp fire issuing forth from his arms.



Aforementioned "reaching." Note the frank display of hideous, sweating, white people and male groinal region (tight shorts man has had his face whited out to protect his dignity). Pink Lady looks like a sweaty spandex pretzel. The small child at left makes this even more bizarre. What sort of cruel universe is this in which children are forced to appear on Richard Simmons album covers? Not a just one.



Wailing and gnashing of teeth. This image reminds me of something Brueghel or Bosch might paint. The cries of agony. Can you hear them?

A hidden relic

Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled wood vines twine
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me
- Woody Guthrie

I picked up my exciting parcel at the post office yesterday. A brown paper package, what could it contain? I already knew what it contained, but there’s always a measure of excitement in getting something wrapped in paper. A friend sent me a camera to use for a while since I don’t have one of my own – digital or otherwise. Well, as soon as it was out of the box I got down to the business of finding crap to snap.

I already had one location in mind. Not far from my house is an overgrown log farmhouse that dates from the mid to late 19th century. It has a tin roof and the spaces between the logs are packed with crumbling mud mortar. I’d always wanted to get out and take some photos of it before it was torn down, which could happen any day now. Developers working in the area are plowing over everything to make room for more cookie cutter townhouses.

It was tough going through the brush. After attempting to push through towards the house from the eastern side, I encountered brush that was simply too thick to crawl over. On all sides of the house the brush was higher than 6 feet. I was concerned about snakes and didn’t feel like walking blindly through tall grass. When I turned around to find another route I came across a black snake sunning himself on a piece of rusted tin (if that ain’t country I don’t know what is). He (or she) was looking right at me. Now, I’m not terrified of snakes, but when you see one out in thick grass it’s more than a little creepy. I attempted to snap a pic of him, but my hands were not steady enough (read: I was shaking in my boots). My snake friend slithered underneath the tin and I circled around his hiding place to find another way to approach the house.


I found a nice big stick and used that sucker to begin cutting a trail through the most gawdawful overgrowth I've ever encountered. I had to crawl, on all fours, through what you see at right. 'Twas packed with oodles of briars and other barbed plants that left their claws in my arms and legs. This was hardly the best route to approach the house, but I decided to just go with it. I tore like a madman through the brush, whacking and chopping vines until, finally, I reached the corner of the front of the house. From there it was only a short distance through what looked like poison ivy, poison sumac, and poison oak all blended together in a green coalition of chloro-hell. The briars had also joined them, forming a tangled razorwire-like mass. On top of that, it was getting hawt. I just half jumped half stumbled over the stuff, at times catching my jeans on tentacles of briars. All I suffered were some nasty scratches on my legs. And poison ivy has yet to make an appearance anywhere.

I managed to fight my way to the front door of the house and crawl inside. Looking back towards the outside , I saw this:

The implacable advance of the plants.

The main room of the house is wood with a thin covering of some sort of plaster. On closer investigation, I saw that the lower half of the house, the first eight feet or so, was made entirely of logs - while the upper part was made of slats. To me, this suggested that the house was perhaps older than I originally thought. At some point it was updated with a level of slats, which added an attic/loft area above the main room. Here is a shot of the house showing the two levels. These are the sort of things that intrigue me as a historian in training (boring, I know). Why did these poor farmers add another layer onto their house? Was it a comfort issue? Did their family grow and were they in need of another sleeping area? Were they in need of space for storage? What economic developments might have led to the addition of another level?

The residents were at one point employing carboard, taken from torn-up boxes, and using it as makeshift insulation. Now that's just dirt poor.

When I stepped out the back door I came to the tobacco curing barn. How would you like it if not five feet from your back door there was a stinky tobacco curing shack? It wouldn't be pleasant. The fact that these folks at one time grew tobacco suggests they weren't always the poorest of the poor. Tobacco was something you could grow in addition to your food and sell for a decent profit. Everyone in this part of my county grew tobacco then, and many still do. My old neighbor from when I lived further out in the country grew tobacco every year. Not only that, but he had an outhouse he still used. I even used it on occasion.

As far as primitive living, this old farm house is about the most primitive I've ever seen. What shocked me was that it was inhabited as late as the 1940s (I found some old newspapers). It gives some indication of the level of poverty that persisted in this part of the U.S. well into the twentieth century.

Unfortunately, it will probably be torn down. The inside of the house didn't feel at all creepy or lonely. There's still a sort of openness to it; it doesn't feel like it's a place you shouldn't be. If someone had the money and the inclination, they could repair it and start living in it again. In fact, not far from there, about three miles, is a mill community called Glencoe that's made up entirely of mill houses from the 1880s and 1890s. People are gradually restoring the little two and three-room houses and bringing a once dead community back to life.

I'll do some research and see if I can't shed some light on who lived in this old house.

Softball weekend

Hmmm. Many mixed emotions.

I had a semi-fun weekend. Went with C. to see a women’s college softball double header: the ECU Pirates against The Louisburg ‘Canes and the Campbell University Lady Camels (yeah, I know, a terrible, terrible name). It’s very competitive. The Pirates were always unleashing these hilarious chants from the dugout: “That bunt, that big ol’ bunt, we can do that bunt all. night. long…” I almost got beaned by a pop fly late in the game.
Well, the Pirates won both of their games. Afterwards, C. and I went to eat with them at Taco Bell (C.’s sugar mama is on the team).

It got cold on Saturday night. I almost needed a jacket while sitting there watching the game. Also, sitting on bleachers for 4 + hours is mighty hard on the arse.

C. finally gave me a disk with all of the trip pictures. There are only around a hundred or so that were deemed “keepers.” To see some of the best trip pics, go here. I was also able to get my crappy disposable 35mm shots developed, all of which will be scanned and available for viewing very soon.

Sunday was spent reading a book of Chinese fiction from the 6th century to the present. Those old Chinese tales are intricate, but filled with fun plot twists.

Today I went up to the university to see a prof. about my grad school application. The writing sample I was planning on submitting to four history programs was stored on a single 3.5” disk that I keep here next to the computer. Well, the other day, while trying to bring it up, I got a message that told me the disk was unformatted. I don’t know what causes this. I don’t really care. All I cared about was that my 30 page senior thesis was on that disk, and now it was gone. So, after breaking out in a hot sweat and searching around for an hour or two for an alternate digital copy, I realized that was the only one. It was lost to the random arrangement of a magnetic strip. Before I went out of my mind, I realized my professor might still have a copy of the paper stored on his computer.

Sure enough, when I went up there today, he still had a copy stored on his machine. I breathed a big fat sigh of relief at that. I am glad historians habitually store things away. They’re real pack rats.

I went down to the post office today to pick up a package from a friend, but after inquiring about the parcel I was told it was still out on the trucks on the street and wouldn’t be available to pick up until tomorrow. Despite a note in my mail box from the mailman (or woman) that it was available for pick up. Maybe they’re just suspicious of it and think it contains some sort of homemade explosive device. I was waitin’ all day for that parcel, too. Now if that don’t just beat all. Ho-hum, I suppose I’ll have to wait until tomorrow for this exciting parcel. And no, you don’t need to know what’s in it just yet.

After my audio blog post, a friend of mine offered to let me use his ftp server. Naturally, I availed myself of the much larger storage space. I now have considerable space at my disposal, but still need to test it out. So, to make sure it works, please click one (or both) of these funky tracks from Nihon (Japan):

The Pillows - Super Trampoline School Kid

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra - Lupin III

The download times on these suckers is usually not that bad. If anyone has any trouble lemme know.