9-3-2010 Rest in Peace Zelda, Princess of the Foothills

Zelda was very old. We put her to sleep last Friday after a rapid decline in her health. Couldn't see, could hardly walk, wasn't eating or drinking. The dear heart. We were all there with her when she left, it was a relief to feel and watch her body relax peacefully.

When we first picked her up the staff at the pound told us that she had escaped, but had hung around the pound. This was the main reason my mom chose her, a smart dog that would stick around our property. So when my mom asked me if I had strong feelings about what we should do with her body, I said "We bury her in our yard. She knew this was where she belonged, we keep her here." Or something to that effect. It was a stressful day. We buried her down by the orange trees, some of which were sent to us by an insurance company (I think) after my grandpa on my mom's side died. Apparently they knew he liked citrus. So despite the oddness of their source, the trees have become a little special.

We've been working a lot this weekend. The table holding a small shrine for Zelda got swarmed with remodel flotsam and jetsam. I had a copious amount to drink the other night and proceeded to take a picture of my hand. I had also edited it a little, and it looked insane, huge blow outs and noise everywhere. The work also involved tinkering with our greywater dispersal system, spawning the top left photo. I basically got to play with water all day.

OTHERNEWSOTHERNEWS I got a letter from the Placer Arts Gallery Committee. They want to schedule me for my own show sometime in their 2011 calendar. Which is huge. Learning to use the miter saw tomorrow so I can start framing stuff. PSYCHED. Also looks like I'll be teaching photography at my old elementary school.
How things change.

8-28-2010 Howlers, Mutilators, Nekromantix

Show photos from last... what? Saturday. Yes. Saturday the Nekromantix played the Boardwalk in Orangevale. Howlers and The Mutilators opened. Whatever prefix you wanna add to billy (psycho, hell, rocka, punk, vomit) type of goodness abounded.

Howlers pictured on the bottom left were good, they got the normally boring Boardwalk crowd to move a bit, but they were nothing surprising. The Mutilators frontman (woman?), pictured top left was a real throwback to drape freakdom. That dude (dudette?) played in pantyhose, a long blond wig, and a blood drenched nurse uniform. The generally lousy Boardwalk crowd put up with this guys (gals?) antics to a surprisingly high degree. The Nekromantix destroyed. Duh. Kim Nekroman may be the most photogenic lead that I have ever shot, though you can't quite tell in the photo here (top right).

Brought my younger cousin, Elia to the show. She even hung around the edge of the pit! Yanked her out of there right before the encore, which was all for the best as most concert goers are all about climaxes. The crowd all went mad for the last Nekromantix song, and we slipped out a few seconds early.

Sometime in August; Do Not Visit Me or I Will Punch You in the Face So Many Times

Ross is such a big baby. Every time I see him he just complains about stuff for so long until I have to punch him right in his nose to make him stop. That or his delicate sinus system can't handle plummeting altitude change coupled with the blood thinning effects of alcohol. That bloody nose of his became borderline biblical. Look at all that Ross blood. We couldn't get it out of our kitchen tile grout for WEEKS. All this bloody excitement got me thinking about taking a lot of pictures of injured things, like my messed up hand. But then I ran out of injured/bloody things to photograph, had to work a bunch, and the idea fell to the wayside.

Started my last college class. It's basically beginning drawing and beginning painting wedged into one class. The puttering old man teaching the class takes too long to complete even the simplest acts of instruction, but he is very nice and he does get the point across, eventually. Drew them friendly men on the butcher paper that was on the tables in our class room, the idea was lifted more or less from one of David Firth's Jerry Jackson videos.

IN OTHER NEWS, there is none. Burger receipt has made its way through many thousands of pages. It's been my bookmark for Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, currently residing a bit more than halfway through the third and final volume. The bookmarks blunt and dirty character has become particularly enjoyable over the course of its use.

8-7-2010 Tosser

Been awhile! Too many legitimate excuses, no point in typing rationalizations. These photographs are older than some. From when Jessica was around a few weeks ago.

We went to a park in Auburn that I used to spend large chunks of time in during the summer. A type of day camp was setup there. We kids used to run that damn place. Chants for food that went unanswered resulted in widespread chaos and disarray. Marching en masse across the park yelling in semi-unison "OOOOOOOREO, WHOAAAAAAAO!" was a daily occurrence. We thought the combination of the winged monkeys from Oz and oreo cookies was something extremely clever to be looked forward to with relish.

So we walked about. There were still kids in the pool when we got there. A few birthday parties, some couples having picnic dinners. And me, wildly flinging my camera around in a bid to gather some interesting unanticipated images through the method of camera tossing. Fair amount of success. You can just see Jessicas head in the bottom left image. Top left image was taken on the back roads drive home, didn't realize that peacocks and deer were on such good terms.

8-5-2010 Self Titled

Mostly running on autopilot recently. Work is scheduling me a lot more, which is good, because what the hell else do I have to do? A bit stressful though. I've an aversion to things that I don't know how to do. Thus far this job is either; things I know how to do changed drastically or, tasks I have no familiarity with. Ah well. It's good for me to be thrown out of my comfort zone.

Jessica, beautiful girl that she is, bought me Starcraft 2 as a surprise, totally unexpected. Had major issues installing/patching it. With it running and the increased hours at work, I have been a lazy boy.

Stupid carpal tunnel.

The photographs I took today, still working on the complicated "Nature is a blind malignant force that wants to eat your children," project. I'm conceptualizing a rad way to display these. We shall see what happens.

7-26-2010 Nerds and Emptiness; a Quest

A significant part of my childhood was spent playing the vidya games. I just dig em. my parents wouldn't buy me any console systems, and we were a Mac family, but just the same I would save funds. Bought myself a gameboy pocket, a nintendo 64. Plenty of others. Getting to the point now, there was one particular game I used to play on my mom's first generation iMac. Its name was Starcraft. Starcraft is one of these games that grabs you by the short 'n curlys and simply won't let go. It has been twelve years since the last Starcraft game was released, yet people kept the old (ancient by video game standards) game alive. This type of behavior is insanely rare in the vidya game community.

Starcraft is special. The developer, Blizzard, finally decided to make a sequel, creatively named Starcraft 2. I pre-ordered it about two months ago, thinking that my new job would certainly supply me with the necessary 55$ I would need to secure the first-Starcraft-game-in-twelve-damn-years. Unfortunately, that job sucked. I do not have anywhere near 55$. But I went to the midnight launch of the game anyway. For the spectacle, and the nerdly dudes.

These shots are from the mall in Roseville where the gamestop is. I had no clue how to get in that late at night, so a bit of an adventure was required. The sensation of walking around an empty center of commerce was bizarre. I walked down some type of promenade surrounded by closed restaurants that were all still playing muzak in their patio seating. In some type of double nerd conundrum, my quest to hang out at a midnight vidya game launch simultaneously reminded me of Romero's Dawn of the Dead.

7-24-2010 Harcore Kids Love Captian Planet

Jessica was in town! That was rad. Went to The Boardwalk, a semi-shitty venue that I haven't been to since I was sixteen. Tons of screamo type of bands. Would've shot all of their sets regardless of our aesthetic differences, but Jessica was there (!) and hanging out with her in the back was drastically preferable to abandoning her to take pictures of bands I don't enjoy.

Did get up there eventually though, for the last two bands. Attila was good, though how much I enjoyed them last night may have been influenced by how much I didn't enjoy everything else. All the previous bands had adopted the screamo/hardcore/autotune "sound," while Attila veered closer to metalcore with some gnar gore vocals at points. So I dug all up on them after trying not to laugh at the other bands; though when it really comes down to it, at least them screamo fellas are pursuing their interests and expressing themselves creatively. Bottom photos are both Attila's set. Up top are the most diametrically opposed images available in The Boardwalk; peaceful and serene lighting alongside blown out marketing toilet.