Fucking Hilarious. The Hipster Olympics.

There will be more to come from Cochella...

The Collection:





This does not count the cameras I have made. It is not a great photo. I took it with my crappy digital camera. And I suck at using the damned digitals.

I actually use most of these cameras. I need to get the film for the spy cameras. Have not been able to justify the cost just yet. But I will.

A few holgas, a few goofy silly  toy cameras,  some panoramic, pinhole cameras, lots of Russian cameras, a stereo camera, a few "normal" cameras, a few sequence or multiple image cameras, an under water camera, polaroids and polaroid-back cameras, two mini spy cameras, a Russian spy camera with a huge zoom lens, Brownies, Graflex, fisheyes, and other things.

My school loan should be here soon....




soon....


soon more pictures of randomness and stuff.


oh, and I got a new chihuahua puppy. He was lost in the desert. I hate chihuahuas. He curled up in my lap and went to sleep. I said, "no, no. You can't be cute like that. I hate chihuahuas."


So now he is mine. Dinah (the cat) doesn't seem to mind so much. I guess the dog is not competition or something.

and I am quitting my steady job to focus on my unsteady and unsafe business of working on celebrities and otherwise wealthy people on the weekends in LA. So now I can focus on school during the week. Or go drinking, if the stress from the inconsistency of rich people gets to me. And I am working on opening up an art gallery and performance space with a friend. Nothing like spreading oneself thin.

Keeylocko





We partied at a ranch out in the middle of nowhere where they serve you beer as long as you want to drink. Owned by an old, black cowboy named Ed who partied with us all night, and woke up before we did with a morning cap of a double shot of tequila.









There was a real graveyard, with even a few new burials. One old gravestone read, "Here lies one Easterner who came West dressed to kill, and was..."





Near the entrance is the boot-tree. Like a mesquite, but sporting cowboy boots instead of pods.











Yes it was a REAL working ranch. Pigs, chickens and cows...







The church:







The beer we drank:



It took hours to get this puppy over a few miles of washboard-dirt road.

Taken on the Diana pinhole.
Tucson Mts.
Tree with moss

I sit in the mountains by myself and feel simultaneously the most isolating alienation AND warm familiarity. It is here that I suspect most that this is all some sort of strange joke. This whole thing. And I think it is a joke on myself, played by myself.

I know I am deluded. But I just can't give up the delusion, even though I admit I am deluded. I admit I accept this lie as truth. I somehow cannot let go. Oh and PS. I made a camera from a cardboard camera kit, but I didn't follow the instructions and made lots of changes with black tape mostly:

I think about gender every day. It is everywhere. Tonight I am supposed to write a paper on how the female gender is treated in the Middle East. I am having trouble. Not because there is not enough to be appalled at. Because of course, there is. It is horrific the stories of stonings, how women are traded like mules, genital mutilation, rape, etc. etc. It is all horrific.

But somehow it feels disingenuous to get overly righteous about how women should be treated there, ignoring the fact that we have not figured out in our own world how to bridge the gender gap. Pointing out the obvious with too righteous a finger somehow makes me feel guilty about the transgressions more subtle that may come from my own person.

And I find it impossible to discuss gender without understanding my own interactions. Having just emerged from a failed marriage some few years ago, and a few failed attempts at establishing relationships since then, I have started to question what exactly I am doing. What do I want? What is it that I am doing in engaging in intimate relationships?

And I don't know: outside of the fact, anyhow, that I am attracted to women. But we get together to satisfy more than just sexual needs. Or else things would be much more simple. Are we looking for mothers and fathers? Are we trying to procreate, albeit on a subconscious biologically inspired level?

For me, I can say that at least on the conscious level, I am wanting companionship. The thought of being alone while old sounds terrible. The thought of wasting my youth alone also sounds terrible. But also terrible have been the relationships that make you feel more alone than when alone. Have we all not been there?

It seems like no matter what happens I am unsatisfied. The only thing that gives me hope is that I know I have rushed into most relationships. So I have not tried being patient yet. I have not taken my time yet. And of course this is the hardest thing in the world to do, when I find someone I like.

Of course there is the whole 'finding someone you like' thing. The ones I really like are always unavailable. Funny that. Do I do that on purpose? No. I don't think so. I just have impeccable taste, and because I always choose the good ones, they are usually snatched up already. Damn.

I don't know how I got from the beginning of this topic to where I am now. I guess I am questioning my proximity and understanding of the opposite sex. I know I don't generally like very many men. And all my closest friends are women. I *think* I understand women. But do I really? Maybe not. Or maybe the issues I am having with my relationships have nothing to do with the opposite sex, but my own. Maybe I don't understand my own gender.

That is more likely. I grew up with no dad, an abusive step father, and no positive male role-models.

There is one man in my adult life that has become a positive role model. A gay man in his late 50s. He is a poet. He moved to NY just a few months ago and I miss him terribly. He used to read to me for hours: the friendship was great because he loved sharing, and I loved listening. There was no sexual relationship. He was more like a big brother, or maybe a father. He still is important in my life. We write letters, real ones. He has given me hope in my gender.

Do I need a straight man for a proper role-model?

Back to women: I suggest that most if not all the abuses of the female gender is rooted in the misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about one's own gender. The fear generated causes men throughout the world and history to treat the female gender the way it has. This is presumptuous of me. But I am going with this idea for now.

Pinhole image:



From the Lubitel166:



two from the Zenit 122k

Hullo friends. School is entering its second week. I am finding myself challenged, particularly by my Mandarin Chinese class. This is good. I find it funny how things all roll together from the most unseemly situations. As I have already told many of you, the Chinese class was unplanned, and mostly due to my need to maintain at least 15 credit hours for honors. When I first signed up for the class, it seemed such a diversion from my educational goals.

But this week has changed my opinion on the matter. I have always wanted to be multi-lingual. And I love a good challenge. The Chinese class has made me realize that 1) I wanted to take more than just one modern language. and 2) minoring in Chinese would push me to accepting the idea of having a triple major (creative writing/english/and classics). Classics was going to be my minor. But I realize now that the classics are more important to me than the minor designation would infer. It seems a bit much, but really creative writing and English are such similar majors as to require only a few extra classes (in other words not a very challenging second major). Plus, it would satisfy my education goal, the main one, which was to take a whole shit-load of classes in things I like. I have no career goal with all this. I am back in school because I want to challenge myself, and because I love school, and because I want to learn a ton of shit.

The funny thing is that if I really get a handle on the Chinese, I would actually have something economically useful when I graduate-an understanding of Chinese, the language of the fastest rising superpower on the globe. That can't be bad.

Knowing this useful language might balance out the other goals I have for the next four years (to learn some Greek and Latin) which have much less usefulness post educational digression. And French, which I still intend on taking at least two semesters of, is probably of little value too, outside of my own personal desire for linguistic expansion and desire not to look like the typical American idiot when going to France.

    Despite the fact that I am an idiot, I got into my classes today. Long story short:  Student Link told me I had a registration hold due to "orientation". I was under the impression this was the Freshman orientation. I begged the guy behind the desk in Humanities Advising to let me out of that hold and he told me he couldn't. I said, "how can I wait until a week before classes to register, there will be nothing left". He said they hold classes for us.

    What he failed to mention to me is that the orientation hold was not for the freshman orientation, but for the department advising "orientation" and he left me with the impression that I could do nothing until the freshman orientation. So despite my gut feelings telling me otherwise, I listened to some bozo behind a desk and didn't schedule a meeting with my department adviser (I DID schedule and meet with my english adviser).

    Fast forward to Freshman orientation on Tues: a long long time in a fold-up chair listening to how great the vendors in the student union were, how I should join a fraternity, and a short minute on the only useful information regarding using bursar accounts, one of the presenters asks for a show of hands who had already registered for classes. While I "huh?-ed", I watched in disbelief while 3/4ths of the hands went up (not one of them being mine). Mind you, I am a get-things-done-early kinda guy. I obsess on being on time. I show up to work an hour early every day. I have nightmares about being late that leave me sweaty in bed. I freaked and all went red.

    Somehow I didn't put a bullet in that little man's head behind the humanities advising desk. Somehow I got into classes; though I am taking Chinese instead of my desired French, and taking a few other classes I am not even sure what they are (but meet some requirements). I talked to leoshan about my troubles before I found a few classes later. For a few hours I thought I only found 11 units of classes, 4 below my desired amount, and 1 below my required amount (for my loan). I squeaked into two more classes since I spoke to him, and now I am at 17, a little heavy, but on relatively easy classes (all except the Chinese class).

    (breathes)

    Well, I am glad I have decided to be an academic. I only have a lifetime left of this wonderful bureaucracy.

I have almost totally finished integrating myself into the home of leoshan. Well, almost. Cats are at the moment getting acquainted. A little moaning going on. Though the alpha has not emerged from her hangout.

My awesome roomie is in potter-land. Though I can't wait for him to be back, I hope he is enjoying his excursion in rainy L-town.

This is the beginning of a new era for me, and I can tell it will be a good one. I have good people around me. I have a safe space. And most important, I am not attached to another person in the intimate sense. God, being single will be really really nice for a change.

Note to self (and to friends): Don't let me engage in my serial monogamist mode. I need to break that habit for a while. I need to break the idea that I have to be totally serious in order to engage in any sort of intimate relationship. Dating = nice. I am telling you, my friends, so that you can slap me (you have my express permission) if you see me engaging in behavior that will jeopardize my singularity (at least for a while). Dating yes. Serious monogamous commitment, no.

Ok. I have moved many many times as an adult. So I am not new to moving.

WHY THE HELL DO I ALWAYS PACK MY BOOKS IN LARGE BOXES?

Every time I move I make this same mistake. Every time. And I end up having several boxes that I would never let anyone else but me carry for fear that they would break their backs.



Somehow it seems putting books in smaller boxes would be wasteful, considering that I have a lot of books. Especially big books. So maybe I am not a complete moron. I mean, yeah...maybe it is financial. I purchased my boxes (the "medium" size which is rather large) from U-Haul because I didn't want to go around begging businesses for their nasty boxes. And really I didn't have the time. And if I purchased the amount of small boxes it would have taken to move my books, it would have been a nightmare.

Anyway, I am just perplexed that after so many times moving, I have not improved my moving skills with regards to my books.

Some of you have heard this story already, but for those of you who have not: this is a true story.

Until my mother remarried I was surrounded by only women. My father left when I was too young to remember. So it was my mother, my grandmother, and my baby brother.

When I first went to kindergarten I had a lot of new, unique experiences that required creative thinking and problem solving. Kindergarten was the fist place I encountered a boys' bathroom. Previous I had never been in one, even though I was a boy. My mother was cheap, so we never went out for meals, and I don't recall ever having to use a public bathroom before. It was new to me, the idea.

So I walk in, and there are a couple of strange porcelain objects on the wall. Well of course, these HAD to be drinking fountains. So I pulled the handle and brought my mouth against the flat substrate where the water came down.



Some kids from my class came in and one of them freaked out, "What are you doing??"

"Getting a drink of water"

"But you are supposed to pee in there"

"No, that is what the toilet is for. This is a water fountain."

Before long I had a line of kids drinking out of the urinals. Because what else would a porcelain object like that be doing against the wall?

I got in BIG trouble. The school principal lectured me for the longest time, and I even tried to persuade HIM that it was a drinking fountain. He got really really mad at me.

My grandmother beat the snot out of me.

Fucking idiots. What do they think the toilet is for?

Warning to Friends and Enemies

A friend just sent two incredible toys my way. You all know how I like to document time with film. Well now I have two more tools to play with.

Meet my two new friends-


The FED5 A Soviet era 35mm camera, the FEDs were mass produced from 1934 until around 1984.



The Coronet 66 A British camera from the 1950s; very simple in that "Holga" sort of way.



Be prepared to have the light emitted from your beings stolen into the lenses of these toys and captured on light-sensitive chemically treated films.

Toshi



















Jaya














I miss you.