Sunday, December 30, 2012

Ghost Olympics


(Here is another post from months ago, probably circa July)

Jack and I have been living with Winter and Nic in the "Ghost Olympics," the name I dubbed our huge old adobe on Jay st. 

Nic spends a good deal of time in the "Loungery room," where he has set up a desk, two chairs, several book shelves of poetry, records, and his J-Pop collection. It is also the laundry room. The kitchen is "Dishtopia" and it is home to our kombucha mother, which is called Jack Jr. In the dining room there is a big pile of crap, which is a constant reminder that to ever be at peace in a dwelling I should live alone.

I’ve pretty much got Jack trained on minimalism. She and I share bedroom where we have 2 beds and 4 plants. The living room has come under my jurisdiction and most of what it contains is space. I hung paintings, added plants and brought a vintage-modern 60’s couch. My favorite piece of furniture is an up-turned troth that I picked up from a Whole Foods dumpster. The “Trothy Table” goes well with a painting from my mom’s rust series. Deguer, the bird, is caged in the living room. I’ve seen him out once or twice and I’ve seen Winter or Nic talking to him once or twice, but he mostly seems to function as captive decoration.

Most of the hanging out occurs on the ever-degrading front porch, which looks onto our ever-improving yard. My dad gave us a tomato plant, a jalapeño plant, bell peppers and morning glories along with a hose attachment. The landlady, “Ray-Ray,” bestowed us with drought resistant plants.

During our first night at the Ghost Olympics we made friends with the neighbors. Fabian is a 20 something hairstylist who lives with his dad, Gerald, and occasionally comes over to sit on our front porch and drink Budweiser Clamados. Gerald came over on 4th of July with his ladder to our roof to enable firework viewing. He listens to Hard Rock on Big 98.5 loudly and consistently as we are falling asleep and calls us “the kiddos.”

“H” or “Bones” and his friend: “Beef” live down the road and know a good deal about where to find the most pure cocaine. Another man mysteriously showed up in our house the first night and was intent on complimenting the beauty of every female in the vicinity. Around the neighborhood he is known for being in and out of prison.

In our parking lot alone there are many houses, including a family with a ferocious guard Chihuahua (“Bruno”), another gay/trans couple, and the guy who drives a Mini Cooper and never waves. At least this was the lore, one day I waved at the guy and he smiled and waved back.

The Ghost Olympics is a nice house and its mailbox contains a list of our psuedonyms but soon it won’t contain us. When Jack’s visa expires I intend on living in a palace of my own neurosis. 
Deguer o

Jack + Winter w/Deguer on light

Jack-Frog + Dirt Girl kitchen

Benji Brick-Head in the kitchen

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

The Knife

The Knife: Music can be so meaningless. We had to find lust. We asked our friends and lovers to help us.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Jobz

(I wrote a couple of pieces months ago and forgot to post them, here's one from July)


I didn't get hired at any of the 19 art galleries I applied to when I got out of school and after two months of searching I broke down and applied for a restaurant job. I was hired as the head pastry chef at a raw vegan restaurant. At the same time I was picked up by the contemporary art museum Site Santa Fe. Though both jobs were nice enough for minimum wage, I was working seven days of double shifts and it totally sucked.

My boss at the vegan restaurant is a French conspiracy theorist who greets me every day with: "How the fuck are you?" We make fun of the customers. My boss plays simpering "meditative" flute music when they’re around - just what you'd expect from a gluten, soy, sugar and yeast free, vegan, raw and living food restaurant. When the customers leave my boss comments on how much he hates that music and I say: “Excuse me, does that flute have single-source origin? Is it organic? I prefer to listen to fair-trade bamboo flute.”

The wall color choice is an appetizing orange that took my boss a month to chose. There are lots of plants and after I complimented them he suggested that I take ayahuaska. He asks about nightlife in Santa Fe and tells me that for my next shift he’ll bring some mushrooms or a joint to share out by the dumpsters. 

Drinking the fresh coconut water inhabiting buckets in the fridge gives me a persistent buzz and taking a shot of e3 live (some sort of green sludge) is what I expect cocaine is like except that it's good for you. On top of that, the food is gourmet and delicious and I'm learning to make all of it. Ironically I can't afford to buy many of the ingredients that I'm paid to assemble daily.

After a few weeks of covering shifts left and right because my boss fired everyone but me, I finally said I had to cut my hours in half to be sane. A few weeks later (after payroll) my boss realized he couldn’t afford any employees and laid me off. Now I have more time for adventures with my poor imported house-wife.

A big part of my day takes place within an internal art-world as I stand around the job that stuck at the museum, waiting to answer the questions of visitors. I've planned out large-scale installations that I'd like to have created within the next ten years, designed an androgynous fashion line, and thought about how to orchestrate my artist identity. I've also reflected about the art that surrounds me, one or two of the pieces bring an inescapable weight when you're with them, a couple of them piss me off, and some of them are nice to gaze at. When it gets really slow and I'm out-thunk I either read the book I keep in my back-pocket or stand there and space out.

The best part of working at Site's current exhibition is manning the Mark Dion piece: "Waiting for the Extraordinary." This piece is a series of two rooms, the first is a waiting room with corporate carpet, downtrodden furniture, magazines without dates and a fake plants. I sit at a heavy fiberboard and metal desk, keeping imaginary people on hold on a fifties’ phone, loudly eating apples, taking sips from my flask, and coldly instructing participants to take a number. After manipulating the numbers to go backwards, or to get stuck in a time loop, I'll call the correct number, which means the participant can enter the next room, who's door reads: "Office of the Didactor of Enoeica Catholepistemiad of Michigania." You'll have to come by and see what's in the second room.

I also enjoy lying to guests and saying the emergency exits and air conditioning units are conceptual art pieces. I’ve replicated the style of wall-text from the rest of the show and made descriptions for these things.


Thursday, June 28, 2012

Marigolds


After the YACHT show my brother and drove up our dirt road to find it obstructed by a pot of marigolds. "Dad loves marigolds!" we exclaimed and I heaved the mass of someone else's labor into the backseat of my Mazda.

The next day I drove down our road and saw that our neighbor had only one potted plant lining her gate and deduced where our gift had come from. Around midnight my brother and I put the pot back by her gate with an apology note.

My mom and I were buying some marigolds, a funnel and a six-pack at Albertson's and the woman behind us was buying a Heath bar and a bouquet of flowers. "It must be flower day!" the cashier exclaimed, and the woman behind us said that Albertson's was close to the cemetery. "My dad passed a year and a half ago, and I'm just waiting for it to get easier." Tears came to my eyes and I felt lucky to be buying living flowers for a living dad.

A few hours later I saw a Facebook status my dad had posted warning against purchasing flowers at Albertson's, so it looks like our father's day gift will require some maintenance against white fly. I just figured he could leisurely guzzle Marble Taproom IPA through a funnel while admiring his fancy blue-glazed pot of marigolds.

Later my mom and I realized we had forgotten the tomato juice, which makes a good cocktail with cheap beer, soy sauce, sugar, and chili paste. My brother and I went to fetch some and ran into my aunt at the store who asked: "is there anything I get for you at the store?"

Cole Bee Wilson is better with our little cousins than Noah and I are, and asked the children about how he should play the stock market as they expounded their wisdom on Trader Joe's version of Funions. "Are those organic?" Cole questioned.

Noah and I sat on the couch working on projects and engaging our grandfather and uncle in conversation about music and the difference between men's and women's shirts, as both Cole and my grandpa were wearing girlfriend/wife shirts.

By the time my dad was done listing the ingredients of the rib-rub he had made (chili, turmeric, cumin, soy sauce, honey etc.) my aunt was on the way to the emergency room with my little cousin Basie having an allergic reaction. Eileen, my step grandma (my Eileen) accompanied and those of us in the front yard continued to drink beer and play music.

My grandpa passed me a joint and after my mom explained to him that I didn't want to smoke it. He expounded about how the medical stuff was very strong and his friend has recently passed out from one hit. My uncle played his hit who's chorus was developed at age 5 or so: "Micky Mouse was a cowboy." We all delved deep into the rhetoric of the song.

My little cousin came back from the E room with his posse and was embarrassed to be seen without a shirt. I offered him the littlest one I have and insisted that he must get into the Mars Volta due to its namesake, as Adhit had insisted to me when the garment was given to me. 

At the end of the evening everyone ate lemon meringue pie (except the vegan) and talked about music. My uncle patted my brother and I on the back, saying he had enjoyed hanging out with us and loved us. I drank a few more cups of whiskey and felt warm inside.  

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Glass Glass Sine Sine



Ira Glass was narrating my life as I travelled on a glass bridge that extended across the edge of a cliff face. It went on for miles. As I neared an impasse Ira noted that this was the point where I would not be allowed to go any further if I didn't convert to the religion of the bridge guardians. Outrage swept through my gut and I needed to know what was on the other side. A security office was built into the cliff. I rang the doorbell and explained that I wouldn't join a religion, but that I wanted to see the rest of the world. The security guards were reasonable and let me pass.

A group of young adults jostled around the restaurant where our orientation would begin, taking group pictures and giggling. Multicolored flags whipped in the spring wind. Round black lacquered tables filled the dark space and we strained our eyes to read the Chinese on the menus. The wait staff spoke Spanish and I tried to tell everyone around about neural oscillations, sine waves, the patterns of dragons through the galaxy, and how all these things are similar.

I knew we could use our brainwaves to find the dragons. Benji had drawn a dragon in dayglo pink chalk in the middle of an empty parking lot and a crowd of people filled in symbols around it. They said that I should draw a sign, so I drew a sine wave. The highway was closed so we couldn't reach the dragons just then, but I knew I could solve the puzzle using my brainpower.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Mummies Don't have Electricity (Post School Stress)

In an underground room I cut the head off of a mummified corpse with a steak knife. The corpse had been a prominent man and had a black scar on his left cheek. I was going to use his head a MIDI controller.

Of course it didn't work. Mummies don't have any electricity. No damn brainwaves to control sound waves. I felt very guilty and left the head in the theatre.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Summary of Last Semester



Mainly what I did this semester was take 8 classes and create 3 theses. I also learned how to swim.

For my music thesis I recorded samples and made instruments out of them. Bottles clanking created high percussion and water-filled woks made for sweeping wobble-lines. I got tons of gamelan sounds and focused on lining up the pulsing patterns to create a polyrhythmic structure.

I thought it would be super cool to create an interface that used body-motion to control music, and realized it would be possible with a Kinect sensor, Ableton Live, Synapse, and MaxMSP. At my senior show: "The X Sound Festival" I performed the piece: "Dream Leftovers" using a minimalist dance to control elements of the song. It appeared that I was floating because I was lit by backlight, wearing a UV costume I had made, and standing on one leg to use one foot to pan a track, In the end I rolled off the stage into the audience.

My teacher was powerful mad at me for putting a dead coyote in her dishwasher. Actually she was mad for not having a DVD for the X Sound Festival (the DVD drive in the lab was broken). I didn't realize it was an issue because everything worked fine using my friend's laptop, including preemptive messages I had made such as: "Shake into a New Dimension is an application downloaded from the ether, are you sure you want to open it?" and "The X Sound Festival has unexpectedly quit, reopen? Once I had been scolded for being unprofessional for an hour or so I felt ashamed and have hopefully learned my lesson.
 
Here's the part where I get to brag however: after being thoroughly chided my teacher commented on how impressive it was that I had written two songs and made a music video in three weeks, along with creating a multi-media performance art piece. She commented that I had accomplished more with the Kinect sensor technology in a few weeks than the combined efforts of the technical director of Mills and a graduate student had over the course of four months. 

Once I was thoroughly burnt out on working hard I just continued to work hard. I directed my first large video crew and finished my psychology thesis. I had an average of 3 hours a day commuting by bus throughout the semester and would use it to do research for this thesis. I ended up writing about music as a metaphor for brain function, discussing how cross-cerebral neural oscillation synchrony may be a crucial component for cognitive function. There are many brain disturbances that are correlated with brainwave synchrony abnormalities and I proposed new research within three of these areas (schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and Parkinson’s disease) involving a relatively new individualized neurofeedback treatment that transforms EEG data into music. 

Now I’m done with my undergraduate degree. I’ve had capstone educational experiences, but it’s still odd not to be thinking about what classes I’ll take next semester. Now I’m busy trying to find a job and an apartment but also making myself deadlines for individual projects like writing an album, making a few DJ sets, making a line of paintings, creating a fashion line, studying for the GRE, Researching all the neuroscience literature on dreaming and learning basic Photoshop, calculus and physics.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Avocado Kingdom


After escaping the summer-camp of Mills campus living I moved into the Avocado Kingdom in West Oakland.

Construction paper decorations lined the halls of the student apartments on campus. As security guards let me into the building (due to the non-working keys I had been given) I was faced with an army of Winnie the Poohs. The flatmates in my "apartment" had added extra rules to the already middle-school-esque list, such as "No Drinking." Apparently taking out the trash wasn't a rule however, as the place stank like a restaurant dumpster in the sun.

I used someone's cutting board on my first day. The next time I opened the cabinet the entire thing was papered, angry sharpie exclaiming: "DON"T USE MY STUFF W/OUT ASKING!" Every time I entered the space whatever roommate was out and about would scurry away, slamming the door behind them.

Outside of my house.
The Avocado Kingdom is built in Victorian style, is over a century old, has a great view of the Port of Oakland and rent there was less than half price of living on campus. I lived with Vas, a Stanford PHD candidate and teacher focusing his rhetoric on animal rights, his wife Debs who had studied physics and art and works a 9-5 on environmental regulation, moonlighting as a torch-singer, Karem, an anthropology PHD candidate at Stanford, and Tina, a mysterious and shy woman who seemed to work at a school in Oakland. To juxtapose the last group of souls with whom I inhabited shared space, my new roommates would feed me vegan ice cream sandwiches and roll on the floor laughing at my jokes. We rotated who's avocados would be stolen based on which ones were ripe (hence the name of our kingdom) and If they took one of my beers they would buy me a six pack. 

In my neighborhood there’s a liquor store on every corner where there isn’t a Baptist church or a beauty supply store. At one juncture the former two stand next to each other, “True Light Church” is white with black lettering and has the same dimensions as “Sav-Mor Liquor” which is black with red lettering. There are projects, newly developed modern apartments, industrial leftovers and current industry, but mostly there are old Victorians in various states of repair - formerly suburbs for San Franciscans at the turn of the century.

My room through avocado leaves
Whenever I would mention that I commuted from West Oakland people would express their concern over my safety walking home through such a "ghetto" area. At one point I was walking home late at night and a van began to follow me slowly. A middle-aged man rolled down his window and with genuine concern said: “Are you alright walking this late at night?” Once I got to my block a shiny sedan tailed me for an uncomfortable distance. The driver of this vehicle seemed to have more malicious intentions than the first concerned citizen. He said “Why are you out so late at night?” I commented that he seemed to be insinuating that it was dangerous for me to be out and noted that he was responsible for said danger. I commented that if he stopped being a threat there wouldn’t be a threat and continued on my way. I started carrying around a mirror shard so that if something like that happened again I could hold it up and say: “You’re dreaming” but it never did.

Realistically I reckon the Lower Bottom (the title of our neighborhood) is one of the safest neighborhoods in Oakland. Our block is filled with people who watch out for each other, bringing one another food and chatting on porches. Everyone’s favorite neighbor is probably a man who goes by “Pee Wee” and takes it upon himself to weed everyone’s yard and tend the grass at the little park on our block. He does this all for free but whenever we would catch him tending our yard we’d make sure to give him a beer.

Corner of my room
One of the best things about my block is that it dead-ends into a vacant lot that’s filled with big metal pipes. I spent a lot of time recording the resonant properties within the pipes, and stopping by late at night to sing my little heart out. One day I was shooting video in the tunnels and was surprised to see some hipsters on a stoop nearby. Later I found a note on my car saying that I was: “Super cute” and asking to hang out. After I had finished two of my theses I finally had the time to kick it on the porch with fellow skinny-jean wearing, vegan hipsters holding requisite Pabst-forties. It’s too bad I had to leave to NM at the end of the semester, because my new hipster neighbor was himself “super cute.”

The best porch drinking experience I had was shared with my roommates. I came home to tell Vas that I would be heading home at the beginning of the summer and he poured me a third of a bottle of his fancy tequila. When Debs got back from work we broke out my shitty tequila and invited every neighbor who walked by to join us. Eventually I took everyone on a field trip to the pipes, but only Debs made it, as the others became engaged in conversation with Pee Wee. She promptly began torch singing and eventually we discovered that the others couldn’t find us and had encountered some mishaps, so perhaps the tunnels can only be seen by wizards. This point is further illustrated by the fact that one day I saw about 2 dozen people with bikes emerging from the pipes, causing me to infer that it’s a hipster-wizard portal.

My roommates half jokingly offered me free rent at the end of my time in Oakland, and we came up with a money making scheme so that I could continue to live there: A vegan ice cream cart called “Polar Bear Sex” (because it’s cool and ironic – ha ha ha). Our music would cater to our demographic and consist of vintage video game jingles done ice cream truck chime style.

At the end of my stay in the Avocado Kingdom my brother and I infused the neighborhood with our obese beats, taking pictures powered with AA batteries, and getting ice cream for dinner at liquor stores. If only Polar Bear Sex did exist – I wouldn’t have to break my veganism for the sake of irony. 


Sunday, April 22, 2012

Two Dogs

I was telling my mom about my reoccurring dreams featuring two dogs, as I sat looking at the two dogs in the vacant lot behind my house. I told her about other recent dreams as the sunset made the world gold.

It was around 6:00 am, my dad was black. He said: "If you get this job we can really be proud of you... make us proud." I saw his words as supportive but supportive of a narrow target, I realized that when we were white I could follow whatever dream I wanted but didn't have to live up to anything in particular, or succeed at all really - I was free to be as motivated or unmotivated as I saw fit.

I put on heart shaped sunglasses and a suit, smiling at myself in the mirror. I was so androgynous that even I didn't know if I was male or female, but I radiated self-confidence because I knew I was something to behold.

In a big empty room with white walls I held a tiny baby and was touched at how soft its skin was. I thought to myself: "This being will never be more perfect than it is now." I looked at the people who had created this additional human in the world, comprehending how mysterious it must seem even after having known the process. I thought about how the child would most likely live long enough to face strife and know beauty and thought: "I never want to procreate."

My mom said she was glad that I had known what it was like to be a parent in the dream, without having to go through a lifetime of sacrifice. She said that it is like how I described, and that being a parent was the right thing for her: “Just imagine being your mother,” she said, I replied that that would be too meta. She said she was glad I knew what I wanted. 


Saturday, April 21, 2012

Pocket Friend

A group of us snuck onto the roof and it was all covered in shiny white tile. I found a hidden mosaic of a killer whale and fished in my pocket for a camera. Instead I found a tiny white bioluminescent sea creature. It was translucent and had little feelers like a shrimp.

One of my favorite teachers from high school, Monsieur Antoine, was working reception within the building, which was also covered in white tile from floor to ceiling. I asked him if he would let my pocket-friend and I in, pointing out that my the sea creature was dressed for the occasion in its miniature tuxedo, complete with bowtie.

We'll Ride Huge Waves and Freeze Them at the Top

--> (Here's a something I wrote in January and forgot to post until now)

Along with pool dreams my wave dreams have become more frequent. Recently I’ve been recalling 3-4 per week. When Adhit and I first met and went to a night-beach I recall telling him that I had just had a dream featuring a similar location, where giant waves crashed over my head.

Just the other day I visited Jack’s big house, which had several pools. One of them was filled with sea creatures. I watched the otters undulate underwater. “The current doesn’t seem strong…” Jack said “where are the blue and yellow fish?” I noticed several of these huge and shiny fish, creating currents with their tales: “You mean those?” I asked. I wanted to go swimming with the animals but Jack said I would be a foreign element in their ecosystem. Two fat seals with big whiskers sat at the bus stop at the perimeter of the pool.  I made a polite smile and said “Hi.” The fatter of the seals responded: “Hi.”

When the tide came in Jack’s house began to flood (it didn’t have a roof after all). It was on top of a mountain surrounded by sea. The sky was stormy and the surrounding flora was a deep saturated green. I went around collecting my favorite books so they wouldn’t get wet.

Another morning I woke up and told Jack I had a dream about the ocean. “Oh wow, you never dream about the ocean!” she replied. The waves in this one were the biggest I'd ever seen. Little kids were being swirled around without control and I was tempted to join them. My family was on the horizon and I was about to approach them when the tide became too fierce. The waves got as tall as houses and came as far as the row of plastic flamingos that were stuck in the sand.

The next day Jack and I went to Baker Beach in San Francisco, to look at the Golden Gate Bridge and enjoy the winter-night-beach. The waves there were the biggest I’ve seen in real life and I jumped up in down in excitement, thrilled and afraid at the prospect of swimming in them.



Sometime after Jack left, my wave dreams got in a competition and finally selected a victor. I was on a mountain by the beach and adolescents were playing in the waves (I guess the kids from previous dream had grown up). My brother was one of them. The waves were as high as the mountaintop I sat on and I thought: “These are way bigger than waves I’ve seen in dreams.” I got worried about my brother and jumped in to try to save him. I tumbled around, summersaulting with the current, realizing it was fun, and that I could return to the mountain whenever I wanted. “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could freeze a wave at its peak and stay at the top?” I wondered. “If this was a dream that would be possible” I reasoned. I decided to try, just in case it was a dream. I reached the apex of a wave and froze it, staying at the top and smiling. 





Monday, April 2, 2012

My office is the dance-floor

I have like 6 posts all backed up from February and early March, but I haven't posted because I wanted to have pictures, but my camera charger is lost. I ordered a new one and it was sent back because they couldn't deliver it. I haven't ordered a new one. Anyway, there went two months or so. I was just writing in my diary and was suddenly like: "I miss my blog!"

As my blog has slipped into low-tide like so many others, I've been waking up at 5 or 6 and working till midnight. I'm obsessively dissolving into a reality of my own creation, and am completely enthusiastic about it - I just don't know where to start describing all the ideas and projects I'm working on!

The reason I though I should write a quick blog post is because I was on the phone with my dad as I rode the bus, telling him about how I am most efficiently productive when I'm on the bus. I've read my entire Music Cognition textbook, and most of my the journals for my psychology thesis on the bus. The other day, as my little body shook loosely within this big singing machine, I got more done on the obese beats I'm making in an hour than I do in about 5 in a quiet room with an almond milk latte. I came up with a music video idea for my Video II group project entirely on the 40-minute ride to school (because I forgot to do so before then) and was personally satisfied with the result. My enthusiasm leaked to the rest of the class and I was selected to be the director of our group project.

When you have to intentionally block out a jangling discord it's a lot easier to really focus. When you have a silent workspace it can be painful to get into, and remain on one task. It makes sense that I prefer to work amidst some kind of chaos - I've always found it easier to sleep if there is a party raging in the background and when I was a baby my mom couldn't get me to sleep without shaking me around to Tom Waits.

My office is the dance-floor, I really can't focus without overpowering beats and strobe lights.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Shell

One day Jack and I felt under the weather and took a nap. I awoke abruptly after speaking with Jack at the foot of an ancient staircase and said: “What did you mean by that?”

At the foot of those stairs Jack had either said she wasn’t in her human form, or that she wasn’t in her real form.

A few days later I asked Jack again what she meant, stating that I didn’t feel I fully knew her, and wanted to see through her polite and protective shell.

She mentioned some darker details from her past and said that when she feels very sad it’s like she’s in between worlds. The space between us was opened and infused with heaviness, sweetness and magnetism.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Google the Flavor

A kitty stumbled off an airplane into Albuquerque. I noticed her far through the swirling glass gate, walking on the front of her feet, leading her dazed swagger with limp-wrists. I showed Jack my hometown, fed her chile, took her sledding and to the spa, went to art-shows and parties, introduced her to my friends, drank a lot of good beer, made a movie, and shaved: "CT" into her head just before heading out to Cali.

Emily Montoya asked me which delicious establishment I’d like to visit before splitting town and we met up at Felipe’s Tacos writing: “Wulph Escapes Zooooo”  on the front page of the Albuquerque Journal and adding quotes around the “tight” in “New Mexican Budget Tight” (bro). The natural thing to do next was to walk to K Mart and pitch for a moustache trimming kit, then spend all our quarters on fake gold rings. Kristen (my best friend forever) Noah, Jack and I chanted “BOGO Chikn Sandwis” as we made our way to the "Death of Culture" ceremony, who’s beginning included everyone shaving things into the backs of each other’s heads by the light of a strobe light, and finished with Benji rolling on the floor cackling: “Baby princess mung-bean pony!” Apparently the edited footage will appear at Site Santa Fe soon.


Once we were in California Jack and I drank plenty of 40’s. We had a couple every day the first week or so we got to Oakland - thus we made sure to empty the recycling frequently at Orjan’s place – those 40 oz. of “Fine Malt Liquor” are not very polite and take up room in the recycling bin than I take up space in the house. We had advanced to plum wine and sake by the end of our stay at O’s, but on our second trip to the MOMA we relapsed and partook of the finest forty to ever grace this earth.

The first time we visited the MOMA Jack and I were thrilled and wanted more. We had bought a forty and split it in the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park, with its magnificent waterfall fountain, lush grass, and frequent visits from security. Jack was surprised by the cheapness of Bandaids in America, after 3 hours or so of walking had blistered her cowboy feet, but was even more surprised by our cheap liquor.

The reason we had walked for so long was because I was trying to find this glass elevator I had visited once before I knew the city. When we finally found the hotel in which it dwelled we couldn’t find the elevator itself, until I asked a friendly woman who directed us toward a place we were not allowed to go. We walked past the concierge and found the elevator, which lifted us above the city, giving us a view of the entirety of east San Francisco. The descent was the best part – like a carnival ride, where the only price was the ability to be sneaky.

At the MOMA there was a lot of stuff that I loved and liked. I wrote artist names on my hands and they washed off before their recording onto a more permanent format. I walked into this one room and saw some pieces that elicited no emotions but were vaguely aesthetically pleasing. Then I realized they were by that guy that made pop-art who I always forget the name of, but I end up looking like him with my white-blonde hair, black-turtleneck and round glasses.

The thing that really sticks out about our first visit was the work of Clyford Still, which brought me to tears. I wanted to take up residency in the room his pieces were placed. Each time I turned to a new painting I would become overwhelmed with a mixture love, sadness and joy.

On our second trip we learned that in the financial district of SF every corner store that advertised liquor only had good beer, spirits, and fine wine. Finally we got to a grungier side street and bought a Mickey’s. We sipped it from its brown paper bag and were speechless at the nuance of the flavor: decidedly different from any other Mickey previously supped upon. The bass on the forty spread out on the base of the tongue. It was stable yet understated, with a hue of palest wheat that held foundation upon which a symphony of flavors balanced. The mids on this beverage were really what made it outstanding – a round and fruity onset landing mid-tongue and reminiscent of lychee. The highs spread out around the palate, sparkling like the smoke of rat-weed which once emitted from Café Jake. After every sip Jack and I united in a repeating sentiment: “Whoa.”
 
Naturally, upon entering the MOMA we had to pee. Jack and I deliberated over which gendered bathroom we should enter. We were both wearing pants, (not triangular skirts), so opted for the Men’s restroom. The last sip of the forty was reserved for this impasse. We downed it, peeled off the label, and propped it up, making a new label for it: “Modern Art.” Well, I don’t want to brag, but the modern art we made had a brief feature at the MOMA.