brendan garbee's blog

story of the week: SOMETIMES HIS FOCUS FADES

2009-12-21T01:40:00.000-08:00

a man. acrylics on paper

Sometimes thoughts of the future fade from view, and with it goes what he could say was a defining standard, a system of perspective. He takes it for granted his belief and his faith that the world works with a certain order. That the sun will come up after a certain amount of hours. That it'll go down after some more. That there are belongings that belong solely to him, which he has accumulated... ideas and relationships and people and responsibilities. Sometimes his focus on the future slips, and then everything stops making sense.

This happens on a Monday, a holiday from work. It might be Labor Day or President's Day. It doesn't matter. He wakes up a little bit later than he typically does and begins to move around the house. Gradually he realizes that, though he does not have to go to work, he has not made any plans for the day.

He has made it a point to use those three day weekends for out-of-town trips, or for big, personal projects that require an exceptional amount of time to do right. But this weekend he lived like another weekend. He woke up late on Saturday and went to the coffeeshop to take a long breakfast. He went to see his elderly father, and he went to the movies in the evening. On Sunday, he woke up a little less late than the day before and worked on a little bit of office work. He read from his book and watched television. And now it is Monday.

Should he go to the museum? Maybe he could go for a hike? There's nothing he particularly wants to do, and, without any plan or anywhere to go, he goes outside for a walk. This is when it happens. The sense and reason of the world begin to falter. He feels as if he should walk into any of the houses he sees. He feels as if he should strike up a conversation with anyone on the street, as if they were people he should know. He feels as if children he sees with parents are his own children. There isn't, he finds, a feeling of closeness or intimacy associated with these feelings. In fact, feeling closeness with everyone is the same for him as feeling no closeness with anyone. A cloud passes over the sun, a large cloud that makes the world slowly shift to grey, and he feels as if it will continue getting dark forever and that the sun will never return. When it does, he is as surprised as he would have been had it not.

He makes his way home and tries to decide whether or not to watch television or read a book. He doesn't want to do either. But not doing either causes him anxiety. He goes to the window. He sits on his bed. He thinks about writing a letter, but doesn't feel like writing a letter to anyone he knows. He's surprised as he thinks, briefly, about the people he knows. He always felt as if he would meet people he would care about more deeply, someday. Is that day still going to arrive? What is really coming towards him, in the future?

The next morning, the feelings have passed him by like a mid-summer storm, scattering things around, but very soon forgotten.

ART EXPERIMENT

2009-12-17T06:06:00.000-08:00

I like some parts of this. I'm working on some new ideas and I thought this one stood out.

I want to try oil paints.

TWO NEW PAINTINGS

2009-12-16T06:39:00.001-08:00

story of the week: GLASS SPLINTER

2009-12-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

pen on paper.

I went out shopping on Saturday in the rain and when I was walking to the car the paper bag broke. The sky was just at that point when the day is over but the evening hasn't exactly started, everything light purple gray blue and streaks of light through the clouds reddish in the way that seems dramatic. And there I was scrambling to hold together the bag and get all the lettuce and the eggs, half of all of them broken now, and the frozen salmon and the leaky milk carton all back in the bag. The wine bottle had shattered and I cut my finger in my hurry to gather everything together, the glass shard getting deep under the skin. I didn't say anything, didn't recoil, or anything. But such a rage flared up in me, you can't even know. The cars were backed up now. People were coming over to help me.

With a young lady's help, I managed to get everything salvageable into my car and, I slowly left the parking lot. I was shaking with anger, my hands trembling enough that I worried about my driving. I was on a side-street, and under the trees I found a place to park and sit. I looked at the glass splinter lodged in my finger and gingerly pushed at it.

Who knows how the mind works? As I picked at the glass splinter, I began to remember, in fuller detail than I had for years, a girl I had known a long time ago. I heard her voice, raspy and heavy, and I saw her small, pretty, bright, girlish face. I remembered walking in Berkeley up to the stadium for a game from the little apartment I had near campus. The landlord was a free-thinker and she was alright with girls and boys spending the night. I had met her in a class and, at first, we'd study together. She talked fast, moved fast, as if something was in her that powered her, but then when I would want to kiss her she would become very still and languid. Her eyes became soft and bright and her lips turned dark and she seemed to grow larger and larger to surround me. I can't connect these visions to my life now, I think, and for a minute I feel like I made a life mistake when I let her go. How did it happen, anyway? We just drifted away from one another.

The street is dark and wet. The trees are moving a little in the wind, making the streetlamps dance. The splinter had come out, I noticed. I had been picking absently at it the entire time, and I must have cleared it. A tranquility rolled over me like the quiet night over the loud day, and I started the car and drove home.

story of the week: SHOES

2009-12-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

old shoe. pen on paper

My old shoes are worn-out faded blue sneakers, the soles are finally giving out and I don't know what kind of shoe to buy anymore. I used to get sneakers from the thrift store and I didn't care what they looked like as long as I thought they were cool, so I had sneakers that were all kinds of colors and cowboy boots and loafers that I thought made me look fake classy and were funny. It really is a problem with all my clothes, I just don't know how to dress anymore, but Rena says I'm being stupid.

But I get bummed out when there's someone who dresses the way wrong way for who they are, cause it's like they're showing everyone they want to be different from what they are but don't know how really. Or even worse they don't even know what they are and it's totally obvious to everyone they don't have a clue cause they dress totally the wrong way. I can't dress like a kid anymore, is what I say to Rena and she laughs at me. It's true, I say, I can't wear this Mickey Mouse shit anymore. I don't want people to think I'm some goofball.

So Rena says, you should go out and buy all new clothes. Brand new. No more thrift stores. She gets up and stands on the bed so that she's taller than me and she throws a t-shirt over my face. You can wear big boy clothes. You can wear daddy clothes and get respect finally.

That's what I'm talking about, I say, I don't want everyone thinking I'm a goofball is the main thing. And Rena changes the subject to talk about work and what she's feeling about some drama at her company and I think, I hate workroom drama. Being a kid is better.

I should go back to the thrift store and buy some trashy gross shoes, who cares? I see dads walking around with their babies and they've got skate shoes on and it doesn't matter. They're not young, but it looks like they think they are and they probably don't worry about it too hard. Maybe they don't even think about it at all. They don't think about how they've got kids and so they are officially not kids themselves even if they try and pretend and they don't think about how they can't go anywhere or do anything without taking into consideration probably a million things like what their wives or girlfriends or whatever partners will say, and what their bosses will say and what their kids will think. How does all that weight get put on a person? I know they choose it, but did they really?

I push Rena so she falls back on the bed and maybe she thinks we're going to play around but we're not. I put on my shitty old shoes and look at them. I wouldn't care except now I'm 26 and almost 27 and I think it shows when people look at me, they can tell I'm not so wild anymore. It's not like I can't go out all night and get into trouble. I just don't like to.

Rena is annoyed that I'm not paying attention to her, so she gets up and gets dressed. I didn't know we'd end up living together, I thought it was just a fling. I still think it is. A two-year fling. She says she'll buy me some stupid fancy shoes if that'll make me happy and I say thanks, but that doesn't solve my problem. I still don't what kind of shoes to wear anymore.

story of the week: IT WASN'T ANYTHING

2009-11-30T06:28:00.000-08:00

pen on paper

You told me that you wanted to travel across Europe and Asia before the nuclear war started and then we laid out beach towels in your mother's driveway to sunbathe. I couldn't tell if you knew I get my eyes off your breasts, your hips, you had sunglasses on, your boyfriend wasn't around so maybe you didn't care. You told me about books you wanted to read, and you said you wanted to go to the beach and I said let's go.

You were surprised. I had a provisional license for another 5 months, but I said I would drive you anyway. You smiled behind your sunglasses and they slipped a little on your nose and I was caught, caught, caught. It was sunny in San Carlos, but over the 92 it got cloudy. Still, it was warm. You didn't put on your jeans or anything, you were sitting on my car seat in just a bikini and I could barely keep my eyes on the road, I was living in that little triangle of material between your legs. You said that you thought you might be a lesbian.

Half Moon Bay was gray and hot and we drove down the coast a few miles to an empty beach. It was a little windy, your hair blew around and I told you you were beautiful while we were struggling to get the towel laid out. You looked at me and smiled and I didn't know if it was okay.

I wanted to say things that would let me have your body. I needed to take off your bathing suit and run my hands all over your skin. It wasn't fair that I couldn't, I needed it so badly.

We looked out at the gray-green ocean and watched the angry water stew and steam cold. The barren black rocks of the cliffs and the gray sky and the murky light and everything was pretty and impervious. I got close to you and before you moved away, I kissed you.

You smiled. You had expected it, I could see that you had. You knew that it was going to happen for days. I pulled my lips away and opened my eyes and we looked at each other. You looked down. I looked out at the water and didn't see anything. It wasn't anything.

ART AUCTION TO SUPPORT BAY AREA ROCK GIRL'S CAMP

2009-11-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

cell in yellow, acrylics on paper

On Friday, Dec. 4, this piece will be up for sale in an auction to benefit the Bay Area Girl's Rock Camp!

BAGR Camp is a rad organization, a camp for girls to learn to play rock and roll and be awesome. Here's some info about them.

The Art Auction is going to start at 7 p.m. at Local 123 Gallery, 2049 San Pablo Ave. One of the bands that formed at the camp, Poison Apple Pie is going to play.

It's going to be awesome. My piece starts at $10, that's so cheap!

story of the week: JANDEK AND THE LAST PERCH

2009-11-15T08:42:00.000-08:00

windows. marker on paper

One day the City Council in our town passed a new law. They scheduled a debate about it, and distributed flyers telling as many people as would listen about the law: Restaurants would no longer be allowed to put their tables outside on the sidewalk, if the resulting walkway was less than 4 feet wide.

The day of the meeting arrived. As with many of such laws, the City Councilmen were unsure of how many people would attend. Whenever they discussed any issue having to do with dogs, they knew to expect 20 or 30 dog owners organized around the elderly Jane Grunewald. But when they passed new parking restrictions for certain blocks no one attended at all, despite the fact that the local newspapers had been ripe with articles, commentary and angry citizens' letters. It was impossible to predict.

The councilmen were a little relieved to find the chambers all but empty at the beginning of the evening. Then they started to arrive: the hunched and grim-faced men that the council recognized as their most delicate citizens. One woman, a skinny, upset small figure, accompanied them. At their lead was Horace Jandek, owner of an establishment that pretended at restaurant and aspired to be a social club, called the Last Perch.

The Last Perch had never offered outdoor seating. Still, they were there. The men took an entire center aisle near the front, and sat with arms folded across their chests. They looked up at the City Councilmen darkly, skeptically, already bored and frustrated. When it came time for debate on the new ordinance, Jandek sprung to his feet.

He was a small, wide man. His skin was thick and deeply tanned, rough, and his hair was longer than maybe it should be and stuck in an uneven transition between brown and grey. He wore a flannel shirt, tucked in, and dusty slacks.

"Men of the council. I come here to protest the new law, which infringes on the rights of business owners such as myself and interferes with the basic rights of citizens to enjoy the pleasant surroundings of our town," Jandek launched in, his high voice rusty and rough. "We, the men and loyal barmaid who are all a part of the Last Perch family, have come tonight to tell the council a story that they may not have heard around City Hall. To tell them of a town that may not be the one they see on their zoning maps and planning commission meetings. I return to a simpler place, a town where most of us men spent pleasant, magical childhoods and grew to a special, rare kind of manhood. In this town, there was thriving industry. There were happy neighborhoods, veritable fortresses of what is best and most holy of not just our community, but of the nation itself. The streets were clean. People knew one another, respected one another. I ask you, gentlemen, what have you done to that place!"

A roar went up from Jandek's men, and, as the councilmen watched with polite, pleasant faces, the man went on and on. As Jandek continued, any light fears that the councilmen might have had about political danger dispersed. The Last Perch was equally ignored and avoided among the people in town, and the men who made up Jandek's crowd were without popular voices, without jobs, were seen only when they walked from their elderly mothers' or fathers' houses to the Last Perch, or to the Oriental Cocktail Lounge. After letting Jandek continue for long enough to give the newspaper reporter in the room a safely negative impression of the man, the mayor interrupted.

"I appreciate what you have to say, Mr. Jandek. Maybe, as a way to add some context to the debate, the City Attorney can outline what this law is and why we're bringing it to a vote tonight?"

The City Attorney cleared his throat and leaned forward. "Certainly," he said into his microphone. "State law regarding pedestrian walkways was recently changed. Our law alters city ordinances to be in accordance with the state's requirements."

This had the predicted effect on Jandek, throwing him off balance and forcing him to rethink his entire approach. "Is that what it's come to?" He sputtered. "The big boys in Sacramento get to tell us what's best for our town?" It didn't matter, really. He was as tired of listening to his own voice as anyone else in the room, and had planned in any case to go out in a burst of anger. "Well, I have rights too. I have rights just the same as any man in this room does!"

And that was that. The law was passed before Jandek and his men had even managed to make it out the door. The next day, a small plaque appeared outside of the Last Perch, screwed into the doorframe:

"MEETING HALL FOR THE

NATIONAL SOCIALIST PARTY OF CALIFORNIA"

A gray, grainy reproduction of the Nazi Party's eagle dominated the rest of the plaque.

Immediately, people began to report it. They called in anonymously to the police station, to the city clerk's office, to the city manager. "I don't know how long it has been there..." "I don't know why no one else has said anything about it..."

After a few weeks, Jandek didn't remove his plaque and it got to be the feeling around town that the plaque was intended to stay. No one removed it. No public health official came out to cover it up with some notice saying, "FOR THE GOOD OF PUBLIC HEALTH THIS SIGN HAS BEEN COVERED." No one said anything. Jandek did not appear outside his establishment to either defend or trumpet his plaque. The mayor grew nervous.

"So what?" The city manager told him. "He looks like a jackass. If anyone asks, tell them that Mr. Jandek is upset about the city Clear Walkway ordinance."

So a sort of cold war of opinion began, in which Jandek clearly lost. But it remained there. The plaque. It stayed affixed to the doorframe there and people who walked past saw it and they wondered. People inclined against the current government, of not the town but the entire country, saw in the plaque as a revelation of the true nature of the country's sympathies. And people inclined towards the course the country was in saw the plaque as evidence that the liberal attitude towards freedom of speech had gone awry and that the integrity of the town and the country was being eroded by people without real values.

It remained there for two weeks. Finally one night, someone shattered the glass. They pinned up a new sign, handwritten, "NO TO NAZI."

Jandek was relieved. It was finally over, and he felt that he had won. He took down the plaque. The major had stopped paying attention, and the city manager took note and wondered how that would effect the next battle. The city was preparing to make cigarette smoking illegal in restaurants.

And, silently, the town saw and approved.

MONDAY MORNING ART

2009-11-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

figure black. acrylics on paper

cell yellow. acrylics on paper

cell 3. acrylics on paper

night figure. acrylics on paper

garden. acrylics on paper

wind. acrylics on paper

stars. acrylics on paper

circles. acrylics on paper

story of the week: I EARNED WHAT I GOT

2009-11-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

"primary colors" acrylics on paper

Sheldon asked about Grandma and I told him, "She didn't go out anymore after they made it illegal for her to smoke cigarettes in the diner." It's true. She got so fat after that, it wouldn't probably have been possible for her to get out of the house anyway. She had worked all her life since even before my grandfather had died, and so she must have decided that she deserved a good retirement, cause she didn't do anything but smoke Pall Malls and drink Coca Cola Classic. She had gone out and bought a few pallets of Coke back when they were gonna change to New Coke, and she said she had enough to last the rest of her life, as long as I didn't give em all away to my friends. That was why I didn't bring the guys around too often, I guess. Sheldon asked if those old Cokes tasted good, and I didn't know cause they were never really cold.

That was the problem, the fact that refrigerator broke and then the television started to lose reception. During a bad rain, all of Grandma's lawn ornaments got scattered out in the salty muck and I couldn't hardly find any of the pink flamingos. Grandma said they were really old, and probably worth a lot of money, and she said they probably got stole by the Indians that didn't know to stay off white man's land.

"What is she gonna do about her trailer sinking?" Sheldon asked, and I told him to shut up. For awhile I'd go out and shove cinderblocks and old tires and whatever other crap I could find down into the salty, chalky white stew of mud and sewage, but then one side of the trailer stuck up higher than the other and Grandma got angrier than the Devil on Easter.

"They're trying to make a laughingstock out of your granny, boy!" She thought it was because she didn't pay taxes. "I earned what I got, boy. You hear? Don't let them shame you." She never left the couch anymore, because the floor in her bedroom got warped enough that no one could walk in there. I shacked up with Angela Winters, even though she still let her ex use the apartment to stash his meth. No, I didn't like it. But it got to smell in Grandma's trailer.

Sheldon got me a job hunting egret nests. The bosses wanted the land cleared of birds, to get everything ready for another housing development. People shook their heads and smiled to think about houses out there in Salton City. We'd seen those men come and go talking about houses and jobs before, and we'd undoubtably see some more come and go again before too much longer. Anyhow, the bosses had me go out in the dead of summer when it was probably 120 out, cause there wouldn't be anyone out to spy what I was up to. So that's why I wasn't with Grandma.

I brought her some McDonald's for dinner that night and when I opened the door there was a rush of air so hot it made me sick. And it was still hot out there, outside in the evening. But that air was probably 20 degrees hotter. I went straight in yelling her name. The air conditioner had stopped working, I knew immediately, and I crossed the debris of garbage and all the things that Grandma collected, and I saw her there on the floor. Lying there under the air conditioner, eyes glazed and looking at nothing.

HALLOWEEN MASK PAINTINGS

2009-10-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

story of the week: TAR BEACH

2009-10-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

bug 2. acrylics on paper

Like any other person in town, I followed the news reports about the Tar Beach murders. There had been five small children with the two families, pretty little boys and girls, the youngest of them 4 years old. Their faces had flashed on the evening news for months, while the authorities combed the forests and the sea for remains. The camp had been found wrecked, torn apart and soaked. It was a rogue wave, was the common wisdom. An anomaly, a freak occurrence. The authorities couldn’t find enough evidence to say for sure. But they couldn’t find evidence to say for sure what had happened, except that 11 people who had gone one night to camp on a pretty, isolated little strip of beach had not been there in the morning. Eventually the 9 year old son of one of the families showed up. The one who had gotten away. He had walked almost 30 miles down the coast, to the nearest town south.

The survivor had a story that no one could believe. A man had shown up at the campsite. What he’d done, the little boy did not tell anyone. At first there was a flurry of interest, of fear. But then it became obvious that the little boy was not in his right mind. He said things that didn’t make any sense at all, about sea monsters and giant apes, and then he stopped talking for good. As far as I have been able to uncover, he is still in the asylum.

Since the experts couldn’t give a satisfactory answer, it was decided among the people in our little town that a rogue wave had been responsible for the disappearance. It was a concern of ours that outsiders not be afraid to come visit our coastline. We did not have much industry. And so we passed a law saying you couldn’t camp on Tar Beach. Well, that was enough of a resolution as anyone needed, and eventually no one wondered anymore about what happened to the ten bodies of those families that’d never turned up. And when two teenage runaways showed up on the beach last year with their throats cut, no one said much at all. Bad situation, they said. A drug deal gone bad.

I had seen the kids in the van when they passed through town during the day, and I heard talk at the café that they’d asked about the beach. Two girls and three boys, not hardly older than teenagers. So in the afternoon I went out there, and, there they were, out splashing around in the water. They were getting a fire going in the blackish sand. The fog was just starting to come in, but it was still warm, so they were all still in their swimsuits. I came out of the forest and walked up to their fire. Not one of them noticed me until I was a few feet from the slowly growing blaze.

“Hey,” I called out, “Hello.”

They were a little bit startled, but said “hello” back, and I asked them if they were going to camp out on the beach.

“It’s beautiful out here at night,” I said, “but I have to warn you. It is illegal.”

The kids smiled and shrugged and looked at each other, and one of them, one of the girls laughed and said that they knew. I gazed at her and shrugged and grinned.

“Can’t say I blame you all. Have a good evening.”

I went back to the house and tried not to think of them, out there alone. I wondered if they had people, whom they had left behind. They looked so young… you couldn’t help wondering what their story was. As was my habit, I went out around midnight for my night walk and decided to go along the path to the beach to see how the kids were doing.

It was so dark on the path that I was forced to slow to a snail’s crawl at some parts. I’d cut the trail years ago, and it had been a long time since the days I used to jog it. I came out above the beach, and I could listen to the kids talking. They were laughing and having a good time.

I did the boys first. Had to cut one of the girl’s throats before I was ready, though. That was too bad. But she was screaming like you wouldn’t believe, while I was still working on her boyfriend.

bug. acrylics on paper

MY ART IS UP AT DALVA BAR WITH PHYLUM COLLECTIVE

2009-10-26T06:24:00.000-07:00

cell 1. acrylics on paper

cell 2. acrylics on paper

If you're in SF, check it out. There's a bunch of really rad art from the Phylum folks, and these two things I did. I'm selling them for 100 each.

Dalva is a cool spot in the Mission. The opening is on this Tuesday, so remember to drop in and take a look around.

I HAVEN'T BEEN POSTING ALL WEEK FOR A GOOD REASON

2009-10-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

I've finally said everything I'll ever need to say.

PSYCH!

I'm hard at work on art for a show on Sunday. But I'll have plenty to post up here soon!

I've also started a new project with Eddie Wright over at Tyranny of the Muse. I'll have more on that as it develops.

And I started putting work up on Fictionaut, which is a pretty cool Web site. Technically, I've put only one piece of work up so far. But I like it, so I'll put more stuff up.

Also, I have an infection on my foot and I'm worried that it's gangrene.

OK. Here we go.

story of the week: 10/29/2009

2009-10-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

"over the town" acrylics on paper

The construction crews showed up Wednesday morning and they started to build something that rose several dozen feet into air over Ronnie's house. She called her daughters and her sons, and they all came over.

"No one told you they were coming?" George, her oldest son, asked angrily.

"Oh, no, not at all," Ronnie answered, and then she laughed incredulously. "They just showed up."

"Fuck that, mom." George declared, and then he and her younger son Johnny went out to talk to the men. A few minutes later the two sons came back and told her that the men and the company that they worked for had all their city permits.

"You got some mail from the city?" George asked, angry. She didn't know, and so her and Paulina, her younger daughter, they went through the piles of mail on the table that had been set aside because they were not bills and not advertisements. There, near the top of the pile, was a large envelope filled with copies of the company's permits and drawings of the cell phone tower that the men were building.

"Oh my goodness," Ronnie gasped. Her husband stood out on the yard until late, talking a little bit to the men working, asking whether or not there would be side-effects of living next to the tower. The men said he should ask someone who knew about those kinds of things. On Saturday, the tower went live and all of Ronnie's children commented that they got remarkably better cell phone service in her house.

That night Ronnie and her husband Tommy were woken up when their windows lit up as if by daylight, and a high-pitch scream that did not sound human ripped through the room from somewhere outside. Then, just as the two old people were scrambling around in the bed, an explosion louder than anything either of them had ever heard before hit the ground outside and it was as if gravity stopped working and all the sheets and all Ronnie's combs and Tommy's shoes and all their clothes jumped into the air and floated around for 20 seconds in the weightless daylight that turned deep, rosy orange and then black.

Ronnie hurried out to turn on the television and flipped through the channels, to find news about what had just happened. There was a late-night movie on, a yoga program, some infomercials... all of them were as they should be, except that there was static on the screen. And then the static got so bad that it covered the screen and there was a voice that emerged, a man's voice.

"...all survivors should make their way east, away from Los Angeles and inland. If you are injured, the government is asking that you raise a flag of any color and shape, so to notify paramedics of your location..."

Ronnie hurried outside, feeling dizzy and sick, and found the neighborhood intact: the sky a clean deep dark blue and everything as it should be. She and Tommy got into the car and drove to their older daughter's house.

It took several minutes of knocking and ringing the bell for Mickey to answer. One of the grandkids had gotten up with her and stood there, wide awake and excited.

"Oh, Michelle! Have you seen the news on the television? They said to leave Los Angeles, sweetie!" Ronnie exclaimed. Mickey frowned at her.

"What?"

"The explosion, honey! That light? I can't believe that you could sleep through it." Ronnie looked at her quizzically. "It was so terrible."

"Come in," Mickey said, yawning. They all sat down and turned on the television. There was no static, no voice issuing a warning like what Ronnie and Tommy had heard. Still, it took several minutes for the two old people to calm down. Mickey turned on the news to see if there was anything that might explain what had happened. There was a big news story about escalating tensions between Iran and Israel. But nothing about any explosions.

The next day Ronnie went around to all the neighbors with whom she normally talked, and she asked them if they had experienced anything. It was only Ronnie's house. Tommy spent the day snooping around the cell phone tower.

"It's the tower," he declared in the evening. Ronnie shook her head.

"Should we talk to the city? Maybe they will move it?" She asked, but Tommy grunted and laughed.

"Might as well talk to the cell phone tower, see if it will move itself!" He shook his head.

That night the explosion shook the room again and, before her eyes, Ronnie saw a vision of herself jumping out of bed and then melting in a flash of light that obliterated everything, the wall and the window and the bed and the sheets and everything. Her flesh vanished and then all the meat of her fell away and her bones exploded into a vapor of ash. It was so loud and so bright that she was blinded and left deaf, and when she recovered she found her face soaked with tears. Tommy was in the next room, with the television.

She found him messing with a tin foil dish he had made. It was stuck to the top of the television, and he was fumbling with metal coat hangers he had bent out of shape and covered in tin foil. The television was on, the screen filled with static, and the volume was up unbearably loud.

"Sweetie?" Ronnie asked, her voice trembling almost as severely as her body shook. As she spoke, the static cut out on the television and Tommy yelped victoriously.

It was the same message as before, but now they could see the man speaking. He was in a white studio, and the quality of film was poor, as if it had been filmed with a camcorder. The Los Angeles area had been evacuated, he said. All survivors should leave. He continued giving instructions, and Ronnie came closer to see what was on the screen, as if it would make more sense the closer she stared at it. She felt cold all over her body.

That couldn't be right, she thought. As far as Ronnie could remember, it was October 21. But that couldn't be right. Because in the lower right corner of the screen, it clearly read 10/29/2009.

"fear" acrylics on paper

SATURDAY MORNING ART

2009-10-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

blue arc. acrylics on paper

man in forest. acrylics on paper

blue arc. acrylics on paper

story of the week: LAST TRAIN

2009-10-14T05:55:00.001-07:00

"black bird" acrylics on paper

The music was still playing and the house was still full of laughter and people when Ann found out it was long past when she and David should have left. David was not surprised. He had already, in his mind, decided to spend the night at the house, probably on the floor. He had realized, back when there had still been more than enough time not to, that they were quickly approaching the time that the last train would leave back to San Francisco. So when Ann approached him in with the urgent information that they had just 10 minutes before the last train was to leave, he just shrugged and smiled. She frowned in a way that turned her broad, pretty face ugly.

"You can sleep here," she told him. "I'm going home." And he could tell that her stubbornness had been aroused, and she was drunk anyway, so there was going to be no negotiating. He protested a little, testing the air between them in any case. But she was already going out the door. He hurriedly said good night to some friends, and then he went after her.

The streets were empty. No cars passed. Down the neighborhoods, he ran after her, the twin clap of sneakers against the pavement the only noise, aside from the far off sound of police sirens, somewhere in the black night. There was no moon out. After a block, the houses gave way to an old industrial sector of town. A few factory yards, all of them abandoned and closed, sat along the road, chained up and left rotting in the night as in the day. It was there that the streetlights ended, and in the shadows, which grew larger every step forward David took, the shapes of all kinds of things began to catch his eye.

"Hold on," he called out to her, trying to catch up.

"We're going to miss it!" She hollered back. He couldn't seem to close the distance between them, her long dark hair and black jeans both blending into the dark. David was nervous now. It wasn't a safe neighborhood, and though he usually dismissed those fears as trumped up by the media, he began to be palpably nervous. A shiver ran all throughout his body. The shapes in the shadows were, in his mind, now almost definitely the shapes of dangerous, malevolent men-things who were there to prey on him and Ann. When he came into sight of the station, it wasn't any relief for David. He was fairly sure that they had already missed the train, and would need to walk back through the same darkened blocks back to the house party.

But they hadn't missed the train. The voice was announcing the San Francisco Daily City train would be arriving in 2 minutes, and Ann was buying her ticket. As he came up behind her she yelled, grinning, "I told you we would make it!" He swiped his card feverishly, knowing that the train would leave without him if he wasn't on the platform. The ticket printed out and he sprinted up the stairs to the elevated platform.

Ann had gone down towards the end, looking down the tracks. The big black hills of the East Bay sat impressively in the distance, and a landscape of rooftops lay in all directions. Ann turned around to look at him, and she waved. It was then that he saw the shape.

The sound of a train approaching began to whistle in his ears, but he could only see the stretching, expanding dark of the thing behind Ann. It was black, pure black and spread out in either direction so far that he couldn't tell where the shape ended and the night began. He was surprised, but not frightened, at first. It seemed like a trick of the eye. It came down low, so it was right over the train track and it seemed to grow and grow as it bore down on Ann. Something near the bottom moved, glinting as if made from metal and brightness, and David yelped as it hit Ann. She jolted, leaping forward as her whole body bucked. Her eyes wide with shock and then seemed stuck that way. She rose into the air as if levitating, her arms and legs gently, spasmodically moving. David stared at her as she floated along the track, gaining speed as she passed, and then he was looking at her disappear, her body still shaking with spasms and her jacket turning a deep red.

Trembling as if cold, David looked into the dark as if expecting an explanation for what he had just seen. He tasted saltiness, and confusedly touched his face. It was soaked with tears. Then the sound of a train approaching began again. Before he had managed to turn around, he was lifted up over the track by the surest, firmest of grips. Pain shot through his whole body and he twitched, suddenly unable to cry out or struggle or move at all. The black night rushed past, faster and faster and faster, until suddenly the incredible force behind him turned upwards and roared away from the city's light.

And then there were only the stars.

"black box" acrylics on paper

IDEAS FOR A NEW AMERICAN FLAG

2009-10-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

As pointed out by some people, President Obama and me, and lots of other Americans are not real Americans. As a result, we will soon not live in real America anymore, but fake America.

Fake America will need a new, fake flag. So I got to work:

new read: Gunter Grass "The Tin Drum"

2009-10-09T05:56:00.000-07:00

first american edition because I'm cool

I found this old copy of "The Tin Drum" recently and picked it up. I'm excited to give it a read. Haven't read any Grass before, but I've read Heinrich Boll and really, really liked it. I think they're from the same post-WWII era, and they write about a nation trying to recover from Nazism.

Anyway, I found this copy at Red Hill Books in SF. I had picked up some other books there recently, and noticed this "Tin Drum" there. I kept on thinking about it, because it seemed so cool. So a few weeks later, I went to bike up Bernal Hill, and I stopped in.

WEDNESDAY MORNING ART

2009-10-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

"giantess" acrylics on paper

I'm going to have art up in a show later this month, in San Francisco.

story of the week: TSUNAMI

2009-10-05T06:03:00.000-07:00

"awake city" acrylics on paper

We went up to the roof in the middle of the night and she was smiling about something that I was sure was something I wanted to know, but I didn't want to ask her what it was cause I didn't know how to ask her questions and instead we talked about Husker Du. I kept talking and talking, telling her a whole history of the band and Bob Mould and all this stuff that I knew she didn't care about and she kept on laughing and looking at me. Our beers were cold, freezing cold and the night was frigid and sharp and I wondered how she didn't need a jacket and could be up there in just a long-sleeve shirt and jeans. Her hair was chopped short and was messy and her big dark eyes were the kind that could look at something, at you, and not move at all, just stay steady and cold and all-taking like they had a gravitational field pulling everything into them. She sipped her beer and then let her head fall to the side to her shoulder and she shut her eyes and shivered and smiled, and then she leaned forward and pointed at the lights of the city and said they were so pretty. Do you think everyone in town is awake right now? I said that they should be because it was Friday night, and if there's any night when you should stay up all night it was Friday, and she smiled at me and she said that she could never get to sleep lately and I said I never could either. She looked at me and frowned and said, yeah right. She said that some nights she didn't sleep at all, she just lay there. I said that the same thing happened to me, and she said, When? Last Tuesday? I thought about it and shook my head. Two weeks ago on Wednesday. I had tried to go to bed early, but hadn't been able to convince myself to sleep. She reached out and held my hand and looked at me carefully and she said, Listen, you should call me up next time you can't sleep. I can't sleep either, and I could really use someone to talk to those nights, you know? And I said, Yes, of course I'll call, that's prefect. I could really use someone to talk to, also. She said sometimes she thought she'd do the craziest things, those nights that she couldn't sleep, and I felt thrilled.

I went to bed with her that night, and in the morning I woke up in her unfamiliar room, in her unfamiliar sheets and next to the weight of her body's warmth and hair. I had been woken up by my cell phone beeping, and I checked it. A text message from Jacob, sent at 5 a.m., telling me that a massive earthquake had hit off the coast. A tsunami warning had been issued and, even though there were tsunami warnings all the time, he was packing everything up and getting out of San Francisco.

God, I thought, let a tsunami come now. It's all so perfect. Let it hit now and wipe us both away, so it'll never be any different than this.

THE SLACKER VOTE

2009-10-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

Reading about the public option getting further beat-up and marginalized in the health care reform debate has made me remember why, as recently as the spring of 2008, I was expressly not interested in politics. I considered myself left of the Democratic Party, and I was disgusted with the whole system and not interested in the least. The Democrats didn't represent me in Congress. I didn't watch T.V. or read the news. When I first heard about him, I figured "Obama" was a weird Irish name.

It was because Obama always opposed the war in Iraq, whereas Hillary had voted for it. That was the reason I went with him, because he had integrity like that. All the rest of those Democrats opposed the war in Iraq, but a lot of them also had given it their support when the war had been popular. I was surprised that Obama had that kind of integrity. And I liked what he was saying, I liked that he was advocating a relatively progressive agenda in a Presidential election.

If it had been Hillary, I wouldn't have cared all that much in November 2008. Obama is the one who got me invested with the Democrats again. I want, like all Americans want, to see the federal government reflect my values and my ideas. And I think Obama can do that, is doing that. He's bold and he's brilliant, and by his pushing for health care reform and (even more exciting for a mid-20-something) for climate change legislation, I've been galvanized to try and help him. I want to see that kind of change get done, and if he's willing to head the parade to get there, I'll fall in line.

All this is a long way to say that Obama and the Democrats need to stay strong right now if they want to keep me and folks like me on board. We're exactly like our far-right cousins on the conservative side, and we'll abandon the party if we don't like what they're doing. Clearly, the Democrats need to keep the conservative Democrats and Independents on board, and I understand why the Dems compromise on the public option. I'm upset, but I'm still on their side.

But don't compromise on everything. Remember Reagan: he was an extremist whom most people disagreed with. But he changed the culture and the political leanings of the entire country with his speeches and leadership. Obama can do that.

story of the week: YOU DESERVE IT

2009-09-27T07:56:00.000-07:00

"two women." acrylics on paper.

She hadn't remembered why she had wanted to go down to the living room once she got there, and then she didn't know how she had gotten down there at all, except there was a memory of needing to find an old cook book that her grandmother had owned. Or was that just a dream? She had been sleepwalking, she decided, and she looked out the window at the silent dark street that was turning deep dark red and she walked closer and as she did she saw the phantom her reflection in the glass. Her large thighs and broad stomach. The thick bush of her pubic hair and her bare shoulders and everything. When had she taken off her nightgown? She went back upstairs.

"Hank?" Gently she woke up her husband. He murmured he was awake without opening his eyes. "Hank, I want to get out of town next weekend. Let's rent a cabin up north, and, you know, get out of town."

Her husband was quiet for a little bit, and then said sure, "Maybe in three weeks? I'm pretty busy," and she lay back down and thought about everything that she would have to do that day and the kids and everything.

No sooner had she closed her eyes then she heard her sons stirring and then their footfalls, loud where the carpet ended. She closed her eyes again and she saw herself walking through the front doors of some office building where she had worked years and years ago. But nothing was exactly how she remembered it ... or was she seeing it all again for the first time, so that it was unfamiliar? ... she saw herself at the desk where she had worked for that year and she saw the people who no longer had names and who were all, she knew, long gone from there, and she couldn't remember what it was exactly she did each morning after arriving at work. She could remember what she used to think about, worrying about money, worrying about the bosses, not wanting to look bad. Desperately, desperately worrying about looking bad. She had always been worried. About what? She couldn't remember. It had been exciting to live back then, and terrible.

She went down and pulled out the cereal and milk, and she turned on the radio to listen idly to the day's headlines. The boys started fighting about something, and she said, "It's too early for this boys!" She sent the older one up to get ready for soccer, and she washed his dish and then went up to get dressed as well. She woke up her husband and told him that she'd be gone and that he should go down to be with the little one soon.

They drove across town and her son jumped out of the car as soon as she had parked. He flew across the field to join his friends, and she went over to find her friends. The mothers and fathers of all the young people were sitting out on picnic blankets or sitting in lawn chairs, in little groups and playing with the little cheerful infant siblings of the soccer players. Connie was there.

"Shelly! Take a seat, girl," Connie said.

"Oh my god, Connie," she replied as she sat down. "I was sleepwalking last night."

"What? Hah," her friend shook her head. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. I had wandered downstairs looking for a cookbook that my grandmother had."

"Seriously? That's very deep," Connie said, mostly playing but looking at her friend closely.

"It's very weird. Maybe I'm one of those people that goes insane at age 40," she joked. "Seriously, it was really interesting. And then I had a dream about being in my 20's again."

"Yikes," Connie said.

"I know. I was such a twerp!" She said. "I told Hank I want to get out of town, so maybe we'll go somewhere in a few weeks."

Connie looked out at the field, where the kids were still warming up for the game. Connie had a little girl in the girls' league.

"Listen, why don't you leave Jason with me. Get out of here after the game, take the day off. I can take Jason home later."

Shelly looked at her friend and then at the field. "That's so sweet. But where would I go?"

Connie laughed. "If someone offered me the day off, I would not worry about where to go. I would just go." She smiled. "C'mon. Go up to wine country and get a massage, or something. You deserve it."

Shelly laughed and said, "You mean it? You really think I should go?" Even though she knew that Connie meant it and would do that and more for her friend. The games started and the two women split up for a while to cheer on their children, and then when the games were over, she told her son to go with Connie. She would see him at home.

And then she got into the car. She got on the freeway and she turned the music up.

"green 1." acrylics on paper.

"green 2." acrylics on paper

"5 a.m. window." acrylics on paper

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE HANGING?

2009-09-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

"magenta skull" acrylics on paper

A man working for the federal government's Census was found dead on Saturday, September 12, in a state park in Kentucky. He had a rope around his neck, hangman style, and across his chest, whether on his clothes or into his skin, we have not yet been told by the authorities, was scrawled the word, "FED."

September 12 also happened to be the day that Fox News television show host Glenn Beck called for a large conservative activist protest in Washington D.C. Like Beck's television show, this protest did not make much sense, and instead showcases a bunch of unhappy, confused people who believe conspiracy theories. Beck is a rising star in the talk show circuit, distinguishing himself for crying on air and for his "common man" simplicity. He talks about how "something doesn't feel right in America," and makes dire, yet vague predictions about conspiratorial forces changing America. He's a big fan of conspiracy theories, and of yelling at people who disagree. One of his targets has been the Census.

Yeah, I think that Glenn Beck has blood on his hands. I've watched his show, I understand. He is capitalizing on one of the great American money-making schemes, and I hear that he is doing very well for himself. Frightened people are some of the best customers, especially for someone who is selling what Beck is selling.

But what happens when you whip up people's fears and passions, with all those lies and those tailored truths? What happens when you tell them that they're going to need to defend themselves from Census workers, and other federal government stormtroopers? Where does this story end?

Some mornings I get up and check the news, and I read things that make me feel like turning into sand and blowing away. How long before I have to read the news that one of Beck's men went and put a bullet in the President? How long, how long?

"blue skull" acrylics on paper

WEDNESDAY MORNING PAINTINGS

2009-09-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

"primary circles" acrylics on paper

"blue figure" acrylics on paper

"yellow plain" acrylics on paper

"circle and bar" acrylics on paper